Various Artists - Music from the New York Stage 1890-1920, Vol. 4: 1917-1920 (CD)

All Music Guide

The first three volumes of British archive label Pearl Records' four-volume history of Broadway show music from 1890-1920, while thorough, were marred by the curious lack of original cast recordings of major hits introduced in stage musicals. But by 1917, the major Broadway stars -- typified by the biggest of them, Al Jolson -- were also recording artists, so this problem is largely alleviated in the fourth volume, which spans the February 1917 opening of Jerome Kern's Oh, Boy to the December 1919 opening of My Lady Friends. Of the songs that emerged from Broadway during that period to become 1 hits, the only one not heard on this triple-disc set is Irving Berlin's "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," and that's only because Berlin did not record it at that time. Not only are the rest of the era's chart-toppers included, but in many cases these are the hit recordings. Disc Two begins with 15 Jolson recordings, all credited to the show Sinbad -- none of which were in the official score, since Jolson simply interpolated songs into whatever stage vehicle he was in. The period spanning from the months just before the U.S. entry into World War I to the end of the 1910s combined operetta with musical revues and the intimate ~Princess Theatre musicals of Kern. After America got into the war, topical songs became common, but the most popular material was still humorous, and the most popular performers -- Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, and others -- were comedians. So, the overall mood of these recordings is buoyant, even as the times were dramatic. This mood is well reflected in a 74-song set that, like each of the first four volumes, runs close to four hours. (Note that the sound quality, while good for unimproved tracks mastered from records from the era, does not remotely compare to 1990s standards.)

- William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide