{"id":512,"date":"2013-12-27T21:58:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-28T02:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=512"},"modified":"2013-12-27T21:58:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-28T02:58:07","slug":"my-porgy-and-bess-playlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2013\/12\/my-porgy-and-bess-playlist.html","title":{"rendered":"My “Porgy and Bess” Playlist"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago Jim Svejda of LA\u2019s KUSC, whose The Record Shelf<\/em> has for years invaluably showcased necessary recordings from before the LP era, invited me to talk about my new book \u201cOn My<\/em> Way\u201d: The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d<\/em> The spine of our one-hour chat was a Porgy<\/em> play-list<\/a>\"81uRM5kIgsL._SL1500_\"<\/a> I invite you to sample (in sequence):<\/p>\n

1.[Beginning of track 1:] From the Gershwin Memorial Concert at the Hollywood Bowl (Sept. 8, 1937), Otto Klemperer conducting his LA Phil in his own slow-motion transcription of Gershwin\u2019s Second Prelude, ingeniously transforming it into a dirge for the deceased composer. Like so many European-born classical musicians in the US, Klemperer more surely recognized Gershwin\u2019s genius than his American-born colleagues.<\/p>\n

2.[Track 1 at 12:03:] That the Met\u2019s Lawrence Tibbett should have been the first singer to record Porgy\u2019s songs (rather than Todd Duncan, the superb black baritone from the original case) was properly controversial in 1935. And yet Tibbett\u2019s heartbreaking version of \u201cOh Bess, Oh Where\u2019s My Bess\u201d will never be surpassed. And the US has never produced a greater operatic baritone than Lawrence Tibbett.<\/p>\n

3.[Track 1 at 22:00:] Jascha Heifetz was another European-born Gershwin admirer; he wanted a violin concerto from Gershwin. He never got one \u2013 but Heifetz\u2019s own suite of Porgy<\/em> tunes comprises an impressive and original tribute. It also elicited some of Heifetz\u2019s best recordings, in which Slavic pathos is mated with a quicksilver jazz sensibility. <\/p>\n

4.[Track 2 at 3:56:] The \u201ccultural fluidity\u201d of Porgy<\/em> \u2013 of Gershwin generally \u2013 is such that Porgy\u2019s songs can be sung any number of ways. Avon Long, who excelled as Sporting Life, applied his breathy high tenor to a terrific 1942 version of \u201cI Got Plenty O\u2019 Nuttin\u2019\u201d with the Leo Reisman Orchestra.<\/p>\n

5.[Track 4 at 8:00:] My desert-island Porgy recording, also from that Hollywood Bowl Memorial concert: Ruby Elzy, the original Serena, singing \u201cMy Man\u2019s Gone Now\u201d for the departed composer. Elzy, who herself died young, was planning to tackle Aida. At the same time, her high-ranging soprano has some Billie Holiday in it. This amazing performance documents (among other things) the interpretive freedom enjoyed by the first performers of Gershwin\u2019s opera. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago Jim Svejda of LA\u2019s KUSC, whose The Record Shelf has for years invaluably showcased necessary recordings from before the LP era, invited me to talk about my new book \u201cOn My Way\u201d: The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d The spine of our one-hour chat was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-8g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}