UNRELEASED 1970 Jule Styne Sammy Cahn LOOK TO THE LILIES Chappell Broadway Demo

$

175

THE PROVENANCE: DIRECT FROM THE COMPOSERS' LIBRARY
Acquired directly from the Alan and Marilyn Bergman Estate in Los Angeles. This historical archival disc was preserved inside the personal library of the Oscar-winning lyricists. VERIFICATION & PROVENANCE DOCUMENTATION
To ensure complete transparency and verify the historical origin of this artifact, this listing includes a high-resolution, redacted copy of the original estate acquisition receipt. We have also included an in situ photograph showing the disc exactly as it was discovered within the private library of the Bergman home. THE CORE RARITY: NO COMMERCIAL CAST ALBUM RECORDED
Because Look to the Lilies closed after just 25 performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, major commercial record labels completely backed away from the production. No official Original Broadway Cast Recording was ever produced or released during the show's run. This makes this 1970 Chappell Music studio advance an incredibly scarce survivor—it is one of the only high-fidelity documents of the original arrangements in existence. Aside from an obscure, limited-run bootleg mail-order LP in the late 1970s and a single overture re-recording decades later, the music from this production has vanished from physical circulation. Because these were internal corporate tools rather than retail items, they were pressed in an extremely finite run. A standard run for a Chappell Broadway demonstration disc of this era was typically between 50 and 100 copies total. They were never sold to the public and were distributed only by hand or courier to a select list of network executives, major talent agents, and elite contemporary songwriting peers like the Bergmans. Over the last 50 years, the vast majority of these internal office copies were discarded, making a surviving copy from a creator's private collection highly scarce. A BROADWAY HOLY GRAIL: THE CHAPPELL DEMONSTRATION RECORDING
This original 1970 Chappell Stereo Demonstration Recording (Matrix Z3RS-0017) captures the historic final Broadway collaboration between theater giants Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. Directed by Joshua Logan and starring Shirley Booth alongside Al Freeman Jr., the show stands as a legendary piece of theater ephemera. Stamped "Not For Public Performance," this unreleased industry-advance disc was pressed strictly for internal production use and tracking among contemporary songwriting peers. The show was originally written as a massive vehicle for Sammy Davis Jr., who famously walked away from the project over high salary demands. His replacement, Al Freeman Jr., was a giant of the dramatic acting community—later playing Malcolm X in Roots and Elijah Muhammad for Spike Lee. Freeman's raw, non-traditional singing voice on these tracks creates an intimate, theatrical listening experience completely unlike standard, polished commercial studio recordings. WHY THE BERGMANS OWNED THIS RECORD
In 1970, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn were the elder statesmen of the American songbook, while the Bergmans were Hollywood's fastest-rising star lyricists. In the close-knit entertainment ecosystem of Los Angeles and New York, distributing advance demonstration recordings to elite peers was standard industry practice. The Bergmans likely kept this copy in their working library to analyze how Styne and Cahn attempted to translate a beloved, quiet film (Lilies of the Field) into a gospel-infused theatrical narrative, tracking the shifting trends in theatrical arrangements and lyrical structure. CROSS-PROMOTION & UPCOMING LISTINGS
This is a continuing series of listings from the Bergman Estate archive. Please see our other Idlemynd2 items for more unique finds from this historic collection, including:

• The Norman Lear Production Archive (MAUDE Theme Reference Tape & Insider Book Lot)
• The Michel Legrand Legacy Archive (Handwritten Correspondence & Unreleased Audio Demos)
• The Grady Tate "Windmills of My Mind" Collection (White-Label Advance 45 & Promo Vinyl)
• The Johnny Mercer "Foxy" Theater Archive (12-Inch Studio Lacquer Acetate)