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"Porgy and Bess" (1935), Opera Composed by George Gershwin, Libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin


porcupine

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Since opera seems to be the topic du jour, how about this one?  I'm familiar with it primarily from a recording my father had, about 40 years ago, that I played over and over and sang to when I thought no one was listening.  I seem to recall it was a "jazz" version but I remember little else.  Does anyone know what I'm referring to?

Anyway, just a few years ago we saw the WNO production at the Kennedy Center, which was excellent.  Although I adore the music, the lyrics grate on my ears.  I know that it is supposed to be evocative or representative of the actual dialect of that time and place, but it just sounds wrong, like the lyricists (DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin) are mocking and condescending.  Perhaps I'm too PC for it.

Gerswhin at his best (I'm deliberately referring only to George here) wrote music that brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.  "Bess, You Is My Woman Now."  "My Man's Gone Now."  Just beautiful.

Here's Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis performing "You is My Woman Now":

And Audra singing "My Man's Gone Now":

Mornin' time and evenin' time...

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Since opera seems to be the topic du jour, how about this one?  I'm familiar with it primarily from a recording my father had, about 40 years ago, that I played over and over and sang to when I thought no one was listening.  I seem to recall it was a "jazz" version but I remember little else.  Does anyone know what I'm referring to?

Could it have been this?

I take anything and everything by Miles Davis seriously (Davis is my desert-island trumpet player - he speaks to me more than other phenomenal players, e.g., Wynton Marsalis, whom I had the honor of meeting and talking with for a good twenty minutes and who was one of the nicest celebrities I've ever met), so if Davis's 1959 "Porgy and Bess" album was your basis, your father probably had good taste.

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