What is there left to say about this musical, deservedly one of the most famous in the canon? Created by what lyricist Stephen Sondheim described as "a unique concatenation of people" (Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins), the show remains as explosively vibrant, daring, and modern as it was decades ago. Bernstein integrated Latin percussion and jazz into his electrifying score, dazzlingly translating New York's unique vitality into a musical idiom. West Side Story has been adapted for jazz and interpreted by pop and opera singers, but you owe it to yourself to check out the original version to see what the fuss was all about. This new reissue adds over 20 minutes of "symphonic dances" as well as liner notes and production photos.

West Side Story is one of the greatest musicals of all time, effectively blending Broadway with a symphonic grandeur (courtesy of Leonard Bernstein, who put music to Stephen Sondheim's lyrics), accents from jazz and Latin music, and a rarely heard (in Broadway) toughness on classics like "Jet Song," "America," and "Cool." The 1957 original Broadway cast recording still holds up today, but isn't as good as the movie soundtrack cast recording. If you, like most listeners, are most familiar with the work through the film, it'll be a bit jarring to find the songs presented in different sequence ("Cool," for instance, comes before the rumble, and "Gee, Officer Krupke" is one of the last tracks). [The 1998 CD reissue has value beyond replacing old scratched-up LPs: there are nine bonus tracks of instrumental "Symphonic Dances" from the production, recorded in 1961 by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Bernstein (although these only add to a little more than 20 minutes of material), as well as historical liner notes.]