As promised, I am following yesterday’s post on George Gershwin with one of my occasional ‘Which version do you like best?’ entries. Summertime from Porgy and Bess has become a jazz standard and has been covered by many artists since it’s composition in 1934.
The song is sung several times throughout Porgy and Bess. Its lyrics are the first words heard in act 1 of the opera, following the communal “wa-do-wa”. It is sung by Clara as a lullaby. The song theme is reprised soon after as counterpoint to the craps game scene, in act 2 in a reprise by Clara, and in act 3 by Bess, singing to Clara’s now-orphaned baby after both its parents died in the storm. It was recorded for the first time by Abbie Mitchell on July 19, 1935, with George Gershwin playing the piano and conducting the orchestra. In September 1936, a recording by Billie Holiday was the first to hit the US pop charts, reaching no. 12.
While in his own description, Gershwin did not use any previously composed spirituals in his opera, Summertime is often considered an adaptation of the African American spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child”, which ended the play version of Porgy. Alternatively, the song has been proposed as an amalgamation of that spiritual and the Ukrainian Yiddish lullaby Pipi-pipipee.
The most commercially successful version was by Billy Stewart, who reached no. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and no. 7 on the R&B Chart in 1966; his version reached no. 39 in the UK and no. 13 in Canada. Big Brother and the Holding Company’s version featuring vocals by Janis Joplin on vocals has been highly praised.
Statistics for the number of recordings of “Summertime” vary by source; while older data is restricted to commercial releases, newer sources may include versions self-published online.The Jazz Discography in 2005 listed 1,161 official releases, ranking the song fourth among jazz standards. Joe Nocera in 2012 said there were “over 25,000” recordings. Guinness World Records lists the website’s 2017 figure of 67,591 as the world record total.
