Sh-k-boom Wearing Someone Else's Clothes

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The hippest of the new generation of Broadway composers, Jason Robert Brown breaks through with his first solo album, Wearing Someone Else's Clothes. Collecting songs written between 1996 and 2004, it's an eclectic mix of rock, gospel, funk, and jazz that won't surprise anyone familiar with his musicals, particularly his song cycle Songs for a New World.

As a performer and a writer, Brown will draw the inevitable comparisons to Billy Joel's "angry young man" storytelling style (particularly with "Getting Out"), but he also seems to be picking up the baton from Stephen Schwartz, a well-known musical theater composer (Godspell, Wicked) who has had some success in the pianist-singer-songwriter realm.

Brown and his band, the Caucasian Rhythm Kings, are frequent performers, and the numbers have a live excitement to them, often stretching out over five minutes. "Over" is a moving anti-war statement, and "Someone to Fall Back On" recalls the yearning passion of New World's "I'd Give It All for You." Guest artists include Lillias White, jazz guitarist Howard Alden, and a studio choir comprised of Brown's theater peers such as Rebecca Luker, Jessica Molaskey, Alice Ripley, and Matt Bogart. Wearing Someone Else's Clothes is an engaging and rewarding album, but that doesn't mean we can't still anxiously await Brown's next musical. --David Horiuchi