Let's start with musical theatre leading lady Marisha Wallace, whose live album has plenty of show tunes. Jennifer Madsen and Susan Hinkson both give us "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" and other love songs, with some that started or ended up on Broadway. Each happens to include something that's in Just in Time, a jukebox musical on the Great White Way.

MARISHA WALLACE
LIVE IN LONDON
Center Stage Records/ Westway Records
2-CD set | Digital | Vinyl planned

With lots of energy, lots of show tunes, and lots of autobiographical patter, big-voiced Marisha Wallace's concert, recorded Live in London in March of this year, is quite splashy and entertaining. She dazzles with a program that is mainly a series of bold, surefire showstoppers, but the parade of powerhouse choices doesn't become exhausting because there's spoken commentary between songs (and occasionally within them). The audience in the Adelphi Theatre cheers and applauds enthusiastically and she engages with them directly. In the physical format, the bounty of material takes up two CDs and there's a fundraising campaign going on for the cost of manufacturing a three-disc vinyl version, too. Miss Wallace is in good, vibrant voice and projects good vibes, vigorous to the max, as she performs with an 11-piece orchestra and several singers.

Material from major musicals she's performed in gets expected attention in this survey of her career thus far, with three numbers from Dreamgirls, three from Waitress (reuniting rewardingly with castmates Lucie Jones and Laura Baldwin on two of them), two comedy pieces she sang as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, and two of the solos from her current starring role on Broadway, Cabaret, with a rowdy performance of its title song plus "Maybe This Time." The M.O. for the performer is basically to step back into these characters' shoes, rather than having them adapted anew to appear to be singing as herself. So, since Sally Bowles was written to be British, the North Carolina-born Marisha suddenly turns on a pronounced English accent for the Cabaret pieces. And she was also cast in the Daniel Fish-led revision of Oklahoma! when it played London, so she uses a bit of a twang for "I Cain't Say No" and follows the numerous re-shapings designed for its pacing and parsing. More surprisingly, "Some People" from Gypsy flagrantly co-opts the personalizations, tics and tweaks that Liza Minnelli employed when she performed it in her concerts. Nevertheless, Marisha Wallace sings it (and most of the others) as if she owns them and they were created for her.

Beyond musical theatre repertoire, there are two medleys, each saluting a soulful pop singer. These are welcome, well-done reminders of two talents, Whitney Houston and Etta James, who died within weeks of each other in the year 2012. Reflecting Miss Wallace's church background, there's some gospel-tinged vocalizing, too. "Shine," on which she is co-credited as a writer, incorporates a bit of the approximately 100-year-old kindred "This Little Light of Mine."

Like many live concert recordings, the artist features material the fans expect, and so there will logically be songs that she did on previous releases. In the case of Live from London, the repeats are: two delights on the recent Guys and Dolls cast album; the warm version of the Annie anthem, "Tomorrow" (on her solo album of the same name); "I Cain't Say No" from the multi-artist concert, My Favorite Things; and "Miles and Miles" from the soundtrack of the film Jingle Jangle (she dubbed the singing voice for someone).

The talk segments (all called "Interludes" on the track list, and given names to indicate the main subject covered) emphasize the performer's perseverance and gratitude related to challenges and successes, but the tales of struggles with money and marriage may feel like oversharing. When she explains fraught feelings about her marriage, she turns to the torch classic "My Man" and pours on the misery. (In the booklet, it's mistakenly credited to the writers of the score of 1964's Funny Girl; the movie version of that stage musical interpolated this weeper by Maurice Yvain, with English lyric by Channing Pollack, from the 1920s.)

Live from London finishes up with no holding back of soaring, roaring vitality–quite the contrary. The frenzied finale, shared with pal Nick Rashad Burroughs, is "Proud Mary." And "proud" is how the diva dynamo must feel about the audio capture of this generous-length, audience-pleasing program of pizzazz. The electricity comes through.

SUSAN HINKSON
JUST IN TIME
Windfall Creations
CD | Digital

She seems so at ease with cozy, medium swing arrangements and phrasing lyrics in an authentic, conversational way that it's kind of surprising that Just in Time is vocalist Susan Hinkson's debut recording. Prior to this endeavor, she had a couple of other unrelated careers. Luckily, she's found her way to music and to the talents of Bruce Barth, a sensitive piano accompanist who can also zip through a fleet and frolicsome treatment. He's also the producer and arranger here. His fresh settings and the singer being very present make the performances of old, oft-recorded classics sound revitalized. For example, the 97-year-old "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" sounds anything but old. There's no sense of cautiously, conservatively following some musical ancestor's playbook or being self-consciously retro for a lark. The other musicians are bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Adam Cruz, with alto sax player Steve Wilson added for five of the 11 tracks.

Intimacy co-stars with energy. Susan Hinkson's voice can be appealingly throaty or sunny. Diction is excellent. Throughout the program, the projected persona comes across as someone who's pensive, with some life experience under her belt, as opposed to ingenue sensibilities with limited perspective. Not every number allows that kind of depth, of course.

Having love and a lover is the main topic, but there's variety in perspectives about the roads and roadblocks related to finding romance. A bouncy "It Might As Well Be Spring" tells of wishing for it. "But Not for Me" pessimistically assumes it won't happen. Then, happily, it does–"Just in Time." The cry-in-your-beer "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" and "This Nearly as Mine" lament romances that seem to be over. These last two are mature, meaty, major highlights, with a believable storytelling approach that feels like the singer is thinking out loud, The loneliness and pain are palpable, but things don't veer into the melodramatic.

Melodies by Richard Rodgers are prominent, for a total of four appearances: two with Hammerstein lyrics (the aforementioned "It Might As Well Be Spring" and "This Nearly as Mine") and two, the fond "My Funny Valentine" and the sarcastic "I Wish I Were in Love Again," having words by Hart. (In the CD's packaging, Rodgers & Hart are also miscredited as writers of "But Not for Me" instead of the Gershwin brothers.)

Susan Hinkson celebrates the release of Just in Time with a live performance on September 17 at Pangea in Greenwich Village.

JENNIFER MADSEN
REIMAGINE
SingBaby Productions LLC
CD | Digital

Have you ever attended a stage play where several strikingly varied roles were played so convincingly that you didn't realize at first that all those characters had been portrayed by the same actor? That's kind of what it's like going through the performances on Jennifer Madsen's album Reimagine. Hearing sweet, smooth tones I can imagine a vulnerable young woman longing for love as I listen to one selection and then she dons different musical garb and re-enters, transformed into a beaten-down, husky-voiced blues singer soaked in tears and whisky. Yet, on "I Can't Give You Anything but Love," the timbre is light and airy, the sensibility blithe and breezy. On "I (Who Have Nothing)," the voice and persona turn raw–gutsy and gruff–and she's a tortured soul, muttering darkly at first, then becoming enraged. Could this be the same Jennifer Madsen whose slow, tender treatments of "Beyond the Sea" and the Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me" are beyond gorgeous in its delicacy and yearning, imbued with a gentle vibrato? The lady is a musical chameleon.

Some of the Reimagine renditions show off the vocal technique and elasticity, and take jazz liberties with melody lines, but there's no scat-singing. There are other surprises. For example, vintage torch songs bemoaning unrequited love in a weak-willed way trade some of the self-pity for assertive confrontation. Yet, while Miss Madsen's characterizations can be tough-skinned, she can also convincingly come off as carefree. Hard-hearted, brokenhearted, open-hearted, the presentations ring true, whether staying in one gear or building and climaxing musically and emotionally.

Pianist Brent Edstrom also created the adventurously original arrangements (thus the title Reimagine). He's joined by bassist Clipper Anderson and drummer Mark Ivester. There are two guest musicians whose contributions enhance one track each: Howard Levy, harmonica player, adds atmosphere to "Beyond the Sea," while Sean Jones joins the group on flugelhorn for "Body and Soul." While a few of the instrumental breaks may be longer and more muscular than the jazz-averse might cotton to, the playing is decidedly skillful and strong. There's good chemistry here.

Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jennifer Madsen also teaches other vocalists and curates group performances. She plans a recording with a big band as her next project. I'll be looking forward to that.

P.S. for the devotees of Broadway and its history of songs being repurposed: While several of the choices on Reimagine qualify as early 20th century jazz standards or independent pop songs, theatre-centric music fans' main reference point/ entry point for appreciating them may be via later Broadway revues, bio-musicals, or their cast recordings. Ain't Misbehavin' featured three numbers among the 11 on Reimagine: "Mean to Me," "Honeysuckle Rose" (also in Marlene and Bubbling Brown Sugar), and "I Can't Give You Anything but Love." That number first came to Broadway as part of the revue Blackbirds of 1928 and was also recycled for Black and Blue, Sugar Babies, After Midnight, Sugar Babies, Jersey Boys and Bright Lights of 1944. "Body and Soul" was first heard on Broadway in 1930 in the revue Three's a Crowd, coming back in three more productions (Uptown ... It's Hot!, Black and Blue, Come Fly Away); the wailing "Willow Weep for Me" was used in Blues in the Night; "I (Who Have Nothing)" was in Smoky Joe's Cafe; and "Beyond the Sea," contained in Contact is back in the current Just in Time.