Mandy Patinkin: Dress Casual

Mandy Patinkin follows up his successful solo debut with Dress Casual. Keeping the same pattern, he provides some Stephen Sondheim ("Sorry-Grateful," "Giants in the Sky"), triple-tracking ("Triplets"), and medleys of standards, as well as some Yiddish ("Yossel, Yossel"). The real highlights, however, are two extended suites, one from Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey (and no, he doesn't sing "Bewitched" in falsetto) and one from Sondheim's 1966 television drama Evening Primrose. For the first full recording of these four songs, Patinkin recruited Sondheim specialist Bernadette Peters, who sings the only song that got significant play after the show, the beautiful ballad "I Remember." Six years after their collaboration in Sunday in the Park with George, the stars are in perfect sync and give Evening Primrose a well-deserved resuscitation. --David Horiuchi