With more than 3.5m worth of tickets already sold for Lloyd Webbers production, the new release of The Sound of Music London Palladium Cast 2006 will undoubtedly follow suit in its success. With favorites such as My Favorite Things, Edelweiss, Maria and Do-Re-Mi, this 21 track album allows us to re-live the story of Maria and The Von Trap Family. Alexander Hanson is outstanding in his support role as Captain George Von Trapp. Polydor.

While the first volume in this wonderful series focused on TV and movie themes in the Western vernacular, such as Bonanza, Gunfight at the OK Corral, et al., this second collection digs deeper into the American kitsch experience -- as envisioned through the eyes of a German family's view of popular culture in the States. There are no less than 23 selections here that vary in range and quality from Nat "King" Cole and Stubby Kaye's bizarre rough and rowdy theme song for the Jane Fonda vehicle Cat Ballou, to Jose Feliciano's rockabilly singing of "Old Turkey Buzzard" from the film MacKenna's Gold, to Glen Campbell's gorgeous "A Man With True Grit" from the film True Grit. There's a vibe that runs through all of this seemingly disparate material, and that is how the Western theme song evolved from a simple Hollywood instrumental with lots of sound effects to the aftermath of Ennio Morricone's adaptations for spaghetti Westerns by Sergio Leone to the involvement of show tune composers such as Elmer Bernstein and Dan Black in the genre. There are traditional contributors of course, such as Tex Ritter with his theme to Wichita, the Sons of the Pioneers with "Sugarfoot," and Johnny Gregory with his theme from Bronco. But there was also an era when singers like Wayne Newton contributed his silky Vegas voice to the series Stagecoach and Andy Williams and his champagne throat sang on the soundtrack for the John Huston/Paul Newman vehicle The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Thankfully, there is also a fine rendition here from the original released soundtrack to the television program Wagon Train, and Dean Martin weighs in with "The Wind, The Wind" from the film Pardners -- yes, it was a comedy. The package, unlike other Bear Family packages, contains literally no liner notes, but the sound has been remastered expertly and the booklet includes literally dozens of reproductions of movie posters (mostly German versions!) and stills from both film and TV. This is every bit as essential as the first volume and even more off the beaten track. ~ Thom Jurek

2015 two CD set. The original Broadway cast album of Hamilton, a fusion of hip-hop and pop-driven musical theater, is now available from Atlantic Records. Cast members from the blockbuster new musical Hamilton, which recently opened to widespread critical acclaim at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, began recording their parts for this release in August of this year. This two-disc album was produced by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter, founding members of the Grammy-winning hip-hop band, The Roots.

Roman Polanski's telling of famed Polish composer-pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's survival in the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto can't help but be infused with the director's deepest passions: he himself escaped the Krakw ghetto as a boy of 7. The musician's status as a musical hero to the oppressed Polish Jews of World War II was surpassed only by that of Chopin, the composer who was at the core of Szpilman's repertoire. Thus this score revolves tightly around Chopin's music, with modern Polish pianist Janusz Olejniczak paying passionate homage to both his musical and national forebears, the haunting strains of the Nocturne in C-sharp Minor setting the film's historical and dramatic tone. The underscore of previous Polanski collaborator Wojciech Kilar (The Ninth Gate, Death and the Maiden) is represented here by the soulful "Moving to the Ghetto," a cue that helps anchor the soundtrack's troubling time and place with understated grace. The collection concludes with a rare, remastered performance of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 17, No.4 by Szpilman himself, recorded in Warsaw in 1948. --Jerry McCulley

1986's Home of the Brave is the soundtrack to a film consisting of live pieces debuted during Laurie Anderson's first world tour, promoting 1984's Mister Heartbreak. Only one song from that album, a radically reworked version of the William S. Burroughs cameo 'Sharkey's Night,' appears here-the rest of the album is something of a return to the performance art basis of Anderson's earlier work like Big Science and United States I-IV. Warner.