AVENUE Q (VICTOR) - If there's artistic justice in tonight's Tony Awards, then Avenue Q will win for its score by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Some may find the puppet characters offputting, but judged strictly from the cast recording, it is the freshest show on Broadway, with an exuberant pop-rock score and hilarious lyrics in songs such as What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist and The Internet Is for Porn. This musical about 20-somethings in search of themselves in a New York outer borough even has an ode to Schadenfreude (taking pleasure in other people's pain) and a character playing Gary Coleman (yes, that Gary Coleman) as an apartment building superintendent. The CD makes the perfect gift for this year's college graduate. Grade: A
WONDERFUL TOWN (DRG) - Leonard Bernstein is back on Broadway in a revival of Wonderful Town, with the sparkling score that he and his collaborators, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, knocked out in a month. In a way, the 1953 musical was a starry-eyed forerunner of Avenue Q, telling the story of how young people from the provinces seek fame and fortune in New York. Donna Murphy and Jennifer Westfeldt are Ruth and Eileen Sherwood, sisters from Ohio who land in a basement apartment in Greenwich Village. Murphy brings expert singing and comic finesse to her role, acting out songs in delectable fashion, from the riotous Conga! to her touching duet with Westfeldt about throwing in the towel and going back home, Ohio. The charm of a number such as My Darlin' Eileen, with its harmonizing Irish cops, reflects a time when musicals were more character- than concept-driven. Rob Fisher conducts the Bernstein arrangements in all their infectious, jazzy glory. A
THE BOY FROM OZ (DECCA) - Hugh Jackman is the proverbial tough act to follow in The Boy From Oz. Jackman - Wolverine in the X-Men movies - has been so dynamic in the musical biography of his fellow Australian, the late singer-songwriter Peter Allen, that when he leaves the show, it will close. Allen was briefly married to Liza Minnelli, played by Stephanie J. Block, and they have a charming duet on Best That You Can Do. Allen standards such as The Lives of Me, I Go to Rio, the AIDS anthem Love Don't Need a Reason, Bi-Coastal and Once Before I Go receive infectious performances from Jackman. B
BOUNCE (NONESUCH) - Stephen Sondheim's Bounce, long delayed and labored over, premiered in Chicago and Washington, but it was deemed too risky to make the move to Broadway. At the same time, another dark-hued Sondheim musical, Assassins, finally made its Broadway debut, more than a decade after it was first performed. Bounce, with a book by John Weidman, explores the relationship of the brothers Mizner: Wilson (Howard McGillin), a con man, and architect Addison (Richard Kind), who designed the mansions of Palm Beach and Boca Raton. The trademark Sondheim lyrical deftness is on display in songs such as Next to You, a waltz in which Wilson flatters his mother (played by Jane Powell): "The Aurora Borealis is a bust/Next to you." The Best Thing That Ever Happened is a tour de force of ensemble singing. And Boca Raton puts the Florida land boom and bust of the 1920s into song and dance. A
SHERRY! (ANGEL) - Nathan Lane does his best impersonation of Rex Harrison, circa Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, to play acerbic critic Sheridan Whiteside in Sherry!, a musical version of The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Sherry! was a flop when it premiered in 1967, and the score was thought to be lost, but it has been revived in a studio recording chock full of stars, thanks to the contacts of the show's book writer and lyricist, James Lipton, now host of TV's Inside the Actors Studio. Along with Lane, the cast includes Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune and Mike Myers. With a score by Laurence Rosenthal, the musical has a good story behind it (producer Robert Sher discovered the score in a trunk at the Library of Congress), and the title tune is a pip, but the recording is mainly for collectors. C
