Chicago [1996 Broadway Revival Cast]

1	Overture 1:47
2	All That Jazz 5:03
3	Funny Honey 3:36
4	Cell Block Tango 6:13
5	When You're Good to Mama 3:20
6	All I Care About 3:48
7	A Little Bit of Good 3:15
8	We Both Reached for the Gun 3:58
9	Roxie 5:10
10	I Can't Do It Alone 4:48
11	I Can't Do It Alone (Reprise) 0:39
12	My Own Best Friend 2:39
13	Entr'acte 2:19
14	I Know a Girl 2:05
15	Me and My Baby 3:13
16	Mr. Cellophane 4:22
17	When Velma Takes the Stand 2:12
18	Razzle Dazzle 4:17
19	Class 3:08
20	Nowadays 4:48
21	Hot Honey Rag 1:48
22	Finale 1:04

Barnes & Noble

John Kander and Fred Ebb's 1975 Prohibition-era musical, Chicago, was two decades ahead of its time. Originally conceived as a star turn for Broadway superstar Gwen Verdon by her ex-husband, director-choreographer Bob Fosse, Chicagowas revived in 1996. An immediate hit, the new Chicago was a revelation -- funny, sexy, and totally contemporary in its depiction of political greed and corruption. This wonderful recording captures the marvelous new cast -- Ann Reinking, Bebe Neuwirth, Joel Grey, James Naughton, and Marcia Lewis -- at the peak of their powers. The astonishing score, featuring "All That Jazz," "Roxie," "Razzle Dazzle," "Class," "Nowadays," and Grey's solo, "Mister Cellophane," is a veritable collection of showstoppers, all glimmering with seductive savvy and fundamental, if unpleasant, truths. David Elliot Cohen

All Music Guide

Chicago, the 1975 John Kander-Fred Ebb musical, took an unusual path to revival in 1996. Though the original show was a hit, running 923 performances, it was remembered as a triumph for choreographer/director/co-librettist Bob Fosse and stars Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera rather than for its story (based on the 1926 play that was also the basis for the 1942 film Roxie Hart, about a murderess who goes free) or its score. Nevertheless, when New York's City Center included it in its Encores! series of concert versions of forgotten musicals in the spring of 1996, much attention was paid to the murder-and-media storyline, which suddenly had surprising parallels to a certain recent trial and its surrounding legal shenanigans. And somehow the score, which had seemed merely functional 20 years before, sounded much better. Six months later, the show, still with only modest staging, was revived on Broadway to rave reviews. The resulting cast album, running the 70+ minutes possible to CDs, is far more complete than the previous one, and the cast, including Bebe Neuwirth, Ann Reinking, Joel Grey, and James Naughton, is accomplished. The music remains generic '20s pastiche, however, and the lyrics, even in a post-O.J. world, seem unremittingly arch. William Ruhlmann