Ricky Ian Gordon is one of the New York­based composers who seem to be creating a new genre‚ halfway between American art song and show tunes. The booklet that comes with this CD‚ although it prints the texts of the songs and has an affectionate note about the composer from producer Tommy Krasker‚ gives no information about the singers. Dawn Upshaw and Audra McDonald are both well known for their ability to encompass musical theatre and concert­platform styles‚ but it’s a surprise to find the composer Adam Guettel as a vocalist here. Gordon’s music has echoes of Sondheim‚ Copland and a generous dash of the blues. The emphasis is on a slightly jokey‚ half­sad‚ half­happy mood. His settings here focus on poetry by Langston Hughes‚ Edna St Vincent Millay and Dorothy Parker. Hughes’ Poor Girl’s Ruination is paired with The Dream Keeper to make a pointed scena that Audra McDonald sings with expressive melancholy. The male voices‚ Guettel‚ Darius de Haas and Chris Pedro Trakas all veer towards crooning‚ whereas Theresa McCarthy has a pure soprano that is well displayed in Afternoon on a Hill. There are a couple of duets‚ Love Song for Lucinda‚ with a nice ragtime influence‚ and Resumé/Wail/Frustration‚ three typically cynical Dorothy Parker verses‚ sung by Judy Blazer and Trakas‚ which is the most overtly Broadway selection‚ whereas Song for a Dark Girl comes nearest to opera. This‚ like Dream Variations and Daybreak in Alabama‚ comes from Audra McDonald’s recital Way Back to Paradise (Nonesuch‚ 7/99). New Moon and Joy are vocal quartets to verses by Hughes that have that quality of spare emotion that made him one of the most admired poets of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. The mood expressed in them is mostly optimistic‚ as Joy‚ the song from which theCD gets its title‚ implies. Gordon clearly has an original attitude‚ and the accompaniments‚both piano solo and instrumental‚ are full of attractive detail.