MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Ben Bagley's Jerome Kern Revisited - show tunes -- many of them never before recorded.

Ben Bagley's "revisited" albums tend to be devoted to the otherwise obscure compositions of Broadway songwriters, sung by talented but lesser known Broadway performers. Jerome Kern Revisited, however, displays some more celebrated songs and singers than usual. There may be no real big hits among the selections, but especially because Bagley has chosen to include some songs Kern wrote for movie musicals, there are a few that many people might be familiar with. In particular, "Bojangles of Harlem" and "Never Gonna Dance," both performed by Fred Astaire in the 1936 film Swing Time, may be recognized, and "I Have the Room Above," written for the 1936 movie version of Show Boat, also enjoyed wide exposure. At the same time, Bagley's cast of five singers boasts a couple whose names are known well beyond Broadway. Bobby Short is a top nightclub entertainer, and Barbara Cook may owe her renown to Broadway, but she has been a star (Candide, The Music Man, She Loves Me) long enough to be more generally known. Still, the album certainly doesn't rank as anything like an "all-star" Kern "hits" collection by any means. There are plenty of songs plucked from forgotten shows like Very Warm for May and Music in the Air, songs boasting clever lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II or Ira Gershwin in addition to typically attractive Kern melodies. And the performers -- who also include Nancy Andrews, Harold Lang, and Cy Young -- perform them enthusiastically over sympathetic arrangements by Norman Paris. So, this is a typical Bagley effort in that it shines a light on little-known but effective songs performed by obscure but talented singers. It's just that there are some welcome ringers mixed in.

JEROME KERN REVISTED is limited to 500 copies of the CD