With this week's focus on summer at Word & Song, I determined to share with you "Summertime," written by the great American composer, George Gershwin, for his opera, Porgy & Bess. When this song comes to my mind, I of course think of it as a vocal, and obviously that is how Gershwin conceived it. But in researching the music I ran across the most sublime instrumental jazz/swing version of the song by the big band of Artie Shaw. George Gershwin was a musical genius of the highest order, and listening to the instrumental alone allows you to focus on the composition, apart from the lyrics, excellent though they are and perfect for Porgy & Bess.
As you listen to Artie Shaw and his Orchestra's flawless performance of an amazing song, one which some consider the greatest written in the Twentieth Century in America, notice the "voices" of the four instruments which play the melody in turn. The first two, featuring Artie Shaw's remarkable clarinet and Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge's positively plaintive trumpet, are as close to vocals as you can get with such instruments. The other two solo segments feature the remarkable skills of Michael "Dodo" Marmarosa on the ivories and Herbie Steward on the tenor sax. This version of Gershwin’s song has the free-flowing feel of an improvisation about it, but the entire piece was brilliantly arranged by Eddie Sauter. Can musical instruments sing? For an answer to that question, lend an ear to this matchless recording from 1945.
I can't claim any expertise in this musical field, but my parents did at least give me an appreciation of Big Band and some of the crooners, male and female. I think I've still got a little box set of their Jo Stafford 45s. And of course Porgy and Bess was a frequent choice when we were into playing musical LPs. One thing that really comes through on this recording is the old claim that the instrument which sounds most like the human voice is the saxophone. I wouldn't say that's always obvious, but it seems quite plausible here in "Summertime". (I keep the saxophone principle in mind because it's a useful contrast if you need to help people understand the timbre of the voice when singing medieval music -- in that case the instrument closest to the human voice is the bagpipe!)
This brought back wonderful memories of my childhood! Love this song. Thank you