Search - George Gershwin :: Porgy & Bess

Porgy & Bess
George Gershwin
Porgy & Bess
Genres: Jazz, Pop, Classical, Christian & Gospel, Broadway & Vocalists
 
This Classic of Vocal Jazz from the Bethlehem Records Catalog is Back in Print! Bethlehem Records was a New York-based independent record label active in the 1950s and '60s. It boasted an impressive array of jazz talent, ...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: George Gershwin
Title: Porgy & Bess
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Shout Factory
Original Release Date: 1/1/2005
Re-Release Date: 8/23/2005
Album Type: Original recording remastered
Genres: Jazz, Pop, Classical, Christian & Gospel, Broadway & Vocalists
Styles: Traditional Jazz & Ragtime, Vocal Jazz, Oldies, Vocal Pop, Opera & Classical Vocal, Historical Periods, Modern, 20th, & 21st Century, Pop & Contemporary, Musicals, Traditional Vocal Pop
Number of Discs: 2
SwapaCD Credits: 2
UPCs: 826663796520, 758661413225, 082666379652

Synopsis

Album Description
This Classic of Vocal Jazz from the Bethlehem Records Catalog is Back in Print! Bethlehem Records was a New York-based independent record label active in the 1950s and '60s. It boasted an impressive array of jazz talent, including Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Mel Tormé, Dexter Gordon, and many others. Shout! Factory is proud to be reissuing some of the key Bethlehem albums. This ambitious Bethlehem album from 1956 was the second-ever complete recording of Gershwin's classic opera Porgy and Bess, but it was the first to use jazz singers and players. Featuring such jazz greats as Duke Ellington, Mel Tormé, Johnny Hartman and Frank Rosolino, it inspired other landmark jazz recordings of the opera, including the classic instrumental LP by Miles Davis and Gil Evans. However, the original Bethlehem recording remains the definitive vocal version.

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CD Reviews

Avoid this like the plague
Ronald P. Martin | 04/19/2010
(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is just execrable. It bears as much resemblance to the Gershwin masterwork as ordure does to a diamond (the blow-by-blow narrative accompanying the fugue where Porgy kills Crown is just one example of the kind of extremely bad taste characterizing this project). Later in life, Mel Torme regretted having been involved in this, and for good reason.



In short, this so-called "complete" Porgy and Bess is a complete sham, a textbook example of what not to do when "jazzing" the classics. If you want to hear the opera as Gershwin intended for it to be heard, get one of the complete recordings [either by Lorin Maazel (Decca) or Simon Rattle (EMI)]. If you want a jazz take on Porgy, look for the Miles Davis / Gil Evans Porgy and Bess Suite, which is respectful and strangely true to the spirit of Gershwin, arguably America's greatest and certainly our most beloved composer of art music.



(By the way, Porgy is not a "jazz opera", as one of the reviewers puts it; it is not a precursor of "Tommy" or any other lamentable so-called "rock opera"; nor is it pre-soul or even "pop". The composer called it, at different times, grand or folk opera, but never jazz. Gershwin employed popular elements, it is true, but so did all of the great composers of opera, Mozart, Verdi, Bizet.)"
Garcia ROCKS!!
J. L. Corbin | Pittsburgh PA USA | 03/03/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Approximately 55 years ago, this recording was part of our fasmily's jazz collection. Twenty-five years ago, after I'd moved away and had my own family I paid a collector $40 for a vintge LP/album. Given that it is someplace in a box in my daughter's attic, AND that I no longer have a record player, you can imagine how happy I was to find a CD!



The quality is great, the prompt service from Amazon was supurb!"