Oscar Hammerstein II had toyed with the idea of adapting Georges Bizet's Carmen ever since he had heard it in concert at the Hollywood Bowl in the 1930s. The 1875 opera had healthy doses of drama and passion, which Hammerstein felt was well suited to a musical theater adaptation. His concept was to reset the action of the play to World War II North Carolina and Chicago and perform it with an all-black cast. In creating the musical, Hammerstein worked with the original Carmen score and libretto. With the exception of two arias, he did not alter Bizet's music in any way.
   Hammerstein eventually completed his libretto for Carmen Jones in 1942, just as he was beginning work with composer Richard Rodgers on a musical version of Lynn Riggs' play, Green Grow The Lilacs, later to be named Oklahoma! The lyricist brought Carmen Jones to several producers, including Broadway veteran Max Gordon. The project was rejected each time, presumably due to perceived difficulties in casting. Black actors with operatic singing abilities were not well known to Broadway at that time. There was also doubt among the theater community as to whether audiences would accept a serious and classical music piece, performed by a non-white cast. Eventually the impresario Billy Rose agreed to put on the work. Rose held Oscar Hammerstein in great esteem, in spite of the fact that Hammerstein had not written a commercially successful musical in years. Ever the showman, Billy Rose also saw a marvelous publicity opportunity in Carmen Jones.                           
   Rose and Hammerstein went to work on casting with the help of John Hammond Jr, the jazz buff and producer. Hammond, who had made a career out of discovering and developing black musical talent, assembled actors from across the country. Many of the performers came from outside the theater community, and some had never even set foot on a professional stage. Muriel Smith (Carmen) was working in a camera shop. Luther Saxon (Joe) was a timekeeper in a shipyard and Glenn Bryant (Husky Miller) was a New York cop. Because their singing roles were so musically strenuous, several of the principals alternated their parts with replacement actors. At certain performances Muriel Rahn played Carmen, Napoleon Reed played Joe, Elton J. Warren played Cindy Lou and Robert Clarke played Corporal Morrell.
   Hassard Short, the highly regarded musical theater director and designer, was hired to oversee the production. Short's artistic idea was to give the show a color code in its costumes and scenery: The first half of the musical was set in yellow and then purple. The second half was set in blue and then changed to black and white for the last scene. Carmen Jones was taken to Philadelphia for a try-out in October, 1943. It played there for three weeks to critical acclaim and enthusiastic houses. It then moved on to Boston, where it received a disappointingly lukewarm reception at the Boston Opera House. The conservative audiences were puzzled by the production, and Billy Rose began having doubts as to whether the show should move to New York at all. The sudden availability of the Broadway Theater in New York convinced him to cut short the Boston engagement and bring the production to Broadway as quickly as possible. Carmen Jones opened on December 2 and was an instant hit.
   The critics were unanimous in their praise. George Freedley of The New York Morning Telegraph called it "far and away the best show in New York." Lewis Nichols of The Times stated simply that it was "beautifully done.. .just call it wonderful." The lion's share of the acclaim went to Hammerstein. As Howard Barnes of the Herald Tribune said, "[Oscar Hammerstein], who must be considered one of the greatest librettists of our day after his superb reworking of Oklahoma! and now Carmen Jones, has achieved a masterly tour de force." The show enjoyed a healthy run of 502 performances and returned twice to New York during its year and a half tour. Six weeks after the opening, (and only three months after the landmark original cast recording of Oklahoma! on Decca), members of the cast and orchestra of Carmen Jones went into the studio and recorded twelve sides of music from the production. Selections from Carmen Jones was a commercial hit and Decca kept versions of this title in their catalogue for the next 30 years. As record collectors will recall, however, two songs from the original album of 78s, "You Talk Just Like My Maw" and "De Cards Don't Lie" were unfortunately deleted from the LP and cassette editions of the recording.                
   Perhaps because they were too legitimately classical, the songs from Carmen Jones did not find their way into the hands of Decca pop or jazz artists. One exception, however, was "Beat Out Dat Rhythm On A Drum," (The Gypsy Song), featuring Kitty Carlisle and band leader Russ Morgan. At Decca, Ms. Carlisle comfortably bridged musical worlds. Her many recordings at the label included both popular music and operettas. Carlisle's delightful rendition of the "Gypsy Song" is here featured as a bonus track at the end of the album. As part of this reissue, we have reprinted the commentaries of Oscar Hammerstein and orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett as well as the synopsis as it appeared in the 1944 album booklet. This release is also the first-ever issue on CD, restored from the original lacquered glass discs. Now, with all its songs restored, we are pleased to offer the cleanest and finest sounding version of Selections from Carmen Jones in sixty years.