Not the best redition but song isn’t sang by that many people I felt it was worth posting.

As you might know in an earlier script the peddler would reveal himself to be genie. A demo of Arabian Nights Reprise ended up on Music Behind the Magic, a four cd box with music and songs from The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. This set included Proud of Your Boy and various other songs that didn’t make it to final film like Humiliate the Boy and Count on Me all three where on the special edition DVD. A missed opportunity was to include this song with storyboards.

The creators of Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the third and last Aladdin film in where Aladdin meets his long last father Cassim and finally marries Jasmine, liked the song so much they used at the end of the film. This and the marriage scene made me often feel a bit down when I thought that there would be no more Aladdin after this. Al and co made a few cameo appearances and Jasmine got her own little film but it’s not the same.

The PC MS-DOS version of the Virgin Aladdin video game was by far the best of all the  ports to inferior consoles. It had higher resolution, something like 480 x 320, better graphics with more detail, smoother animation some of inbetweener’s that worked on the film contributed to the game a first in video game history and the game had stereo 44 kHz 16-bit sound with a bigger wavetable (pre-recorded music notes) than any of the consoles. Worth noting that at the time, we’re talking early 90′s, the PC was still developing itself into a game system and so things like soundcards weren’t yet integrated into the mainboard like today’s modern systems. Most common where Creative Sound Blaster 2.0 or Pro compatible cards.

Worth noting is that today The Little Mermaid will play it’s last preformance in the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. With just 685 preformances and 50 previews it’s the shortest Broadway run adaption of an animated Disney movie. Alan Menken’s new songs will live on in a national tour in the works for 2010 with future international versions as well.
Aladdin vetran Jonathan Freeman will have it’s last curtain all as Grimbsy at least on broadway.

Jim Hill editor Alex Ogle attended “An Evening with Alan Menken” back in February. I haven’t checked Jim Hill’s site for some months and didn’t come across any other mention of Alan Menken giving a concert If I had I surely had blogged about it before.

Alex mentioned how Alan Menken talked some about his old friend the way to eary lost to us genius Howard Ashman and the story of how Howard fought to keep Proud of Your Boy in the film. Alan remised that story before on the 2004 DVD and in the 1992 making of book I believe. Alan opened the evening with Beauty and the Beast and closed it A Whole New World

The BCC Radio show Friday Night is Music Night has a special of on Disney music 2 weeks ago on December 26th. The West End cast of The Lion King plus many guest preformed melodies from classic Disney films like Snowwhite, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. A Whole New World was sang by Heather Headley (1997 Broadway Nala) and Adam Pascal (98 – 00 Aida Radames). Kerry Butler also was guest to sing songs from Snowwhite and the seven dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid. On her recent CD Kerry sang the cut-song “Call Me A Princess”

There doesn’t seem to be an option on the site to listen too older shows.

The PS Classics album “Howard sings Ashman” with recording of the late Howard Ashman (1950-1991) comes to stores next week, the 11th of November to be exact.

Howard Ashman gained fame as composer for a number of Disney films including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Even after his death, he passed away before Beauty was released and well before Aladdin was completed Howard Ashman got awards for his work. In the years following his death his music lived on in Broadway and musical productions of these classic Disney films.

Howard Ashman bio is at a number of sites, Wikipedia is a good start. Disney.com has a page dedicated to the great composer they once hired. And Playbill, the site that covered the news on this CD talks about Howard as well.

“Op Zoek Naar Joseph” or “J?” is the Dutch version of the television audition show “Any Dream Will Do” where 11 consterest are fighting for the viewers sympthy and support to win the leading male role of Joseph in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The famous hit Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on the Bible story “Coat of Many Colors” You’re probably famillair with the show as it was co-written by Tim Rice. Who we all know as lyricst on Aladdin.
The format was used first for the British revival of The Sound of Music searching for the leading lady Maria and in 2008 Nancy was found for Oliver! In the US NBC viewers voted Laura Osnes and Max Crumm as the new Sandy and Danny in Grease That’s the backstory on to J?

It happens not much that Disney songs are heard on mainsteam Dutch television/media. Dutch Disney voice actors and actresess who have stage success as musical preformer do their promo songs but like Tarzan even got a short TV audition for the lead male and the Dutch Beauty and the Beast stage show got lots of promo gigs. I heard Kala and Belle solos in last year’s “Op Zoek Naar Evita”. The way Belle/Jane understudy won and is now finalishing her tour as Evita.
But those are musical versions of the film not the film songs themselves (the lyrics changed) so you can imagine the delight to hear a reasonable Go To The Distance 3 weeks ago. The same finalist, Mathijs, got to sing Proud of Your Boy last Sunday on the 4th live show. Rumors go that he might make to the final 3 but eventunally will be voted out in favor of Freek (Enjolras in Les Miz) or John (Tarzan understudy). He doesn’t have enough control over his voice, he trembeles in the long high tones and his text control like he puts the accent on the wrong words and his overal English isn’t that great.

Mathijs version

Clay Aiken version

Alan Menken demo version

Copied from Playbill.com:

PS Classics, the label dedicated to the heritage of Broadway and American popular song, will release “Howard Sings Ashman” this fall as the next volume in its ongoing Songwriter Series.

The disc will feature performances by the late Grammy, Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning lyricist of Beauty and the Beast, Little Shop of Horrors and The Little Mermaid, which are among other film and stage projects he worked on. The release date will be Nov. 4.

Read the full article at Playbill News

Animated News pointed to a Jim Hill article on Kelly Butler’s first solo album “Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust”. The Disney album includes several classic Alan Menken songs from Pocahontas and Hunchback as well as rare gems like the never heard before female take on Alan and Howard’s early Princess Jasmine song that got cut from the final film Call Me A Princess She has a 37-second sample clip at her website, kerrybutler.net
Kerry is familiar with Alan Menken’s work ever since she played Belle in Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast” she was also in “Little Shop of Horrors” did the work demo recordings for the Little Mermaid musical version in 2006.

Heather updated the lyrics section at Aladdin Central with lyrics from “The Wazir’s Song”. The song was part of an early script dating back to July 1990.

It sits in the slot where Prince Ali reprise ended up in the final film. Jafar and his sidekick parrot Sinbad are humiliating poor Aladdin during the balcony ceremony announcing Jasmine choose with ‘Prince Ali’ as her husband. Parts of Aladdin’s humiliation like the flock of birds and flies where storyboarded and used in a later Jafar song “Humiliate the Boy”. The storyboard version is on the Aladdin Special Edition.
It’s also on YouTube: