{"id":41522,"date":"2009-05-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/porgy-and-bess\/"},"modified":"2009-05-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-25T00:00:00","slug":"porgy-and-bess","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/porgy-and-bess\/","title":{"rendered":"Porgy And Bess"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all who know me well, and even those who do not, it is no secret what a big Miles Davis fan I am.\u00a0 With a little probing, it is not difficult to discover which Davis album is my favorite (the one which I am writing about) and which is my least favorite (Tutu).\u00a0 <\/i>It is with extra caution that I approach reviewing Porgy And Bess, <\/i>Miles Davis\u2019 and the Gil Evans Orchestra\u2019s 1958 instrumental rendition of George and Ira Gershwin\u2019s famous opera, written with Dubose Heyward.\u00a0 This is not just my favorite Miles Davis album, but the best album I have ever heard.\u00a0\u00a0 I have thought this for years. How is one expected to be critical of an artwork one has admired for so long?\u00a0 I figure I can at least explain why it is my favorite album.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The key to Porgy And Bess\u2019<\/i>s success is variation, both musically and emotionally.\u00a0 Musically, it showcases Gil Evan\u2019s talent for constantly evolving arrangements.\u00a0 Evans is a master of creating familiarity, then expanding upon the already set motif to form landscapes of interpretation and harmonization.\u00a0 Take the album\u2019s most popular song \u201cSummertime.\u201d\u00a0 <\/i>The song begins with a repetitive counter-melody to Davis\u2019 trumpet*.\u00a0 This interplay between Davis and the orchestra is consistent throughout the song, except during the mid-section, with Evans employing a constant orchestral build upon that counter-melody.\u00a0 Each time the orchestra returns to their counter-melody, it is slightly different from before.\u00a0\u00a0 This is largely due to perfectly placed instrument appearances.\u00a0 In \u201cSummertime,\u201d <\/i>Evans starts with simple, sparse instrumentation and gradually layers other instrumentation on top of it to create a lush, full sound.\u00a0 He does all this while using the variation necessary to make repetitive motion interesting.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Evans\u2019 mutative arrangements are the perfect backdrop for Davis to explore a full range of emotions with his trumpet and flugelhorn.\u00a0 These range from joy (\u201cThere\u2019s A Boat That\u2019s Leaving Soon For New York\u201d) <\/i>to romance (\u201cI Loves You Porgy\u201d) <\/i>to melancholy (\u201cOh Bess, Oh Where\u2019s My Bess\u201d).\u00a0 <\/i>Davis\u2019 and Evans\u2019 background in European art-music and gospel allows them to explore sounds and emotions seldom heard in popular music, let alone jazz.\u00a0 The most prominent example of this is \u201cPrayer.<\/i>\u201d <\/i>This rendition captures with exquisite detail the intense and frightening nature of viewing an ecstatic person in the midst of a spiritual experience.\u00a0 It inflicts a scourge of caution into its listener, going from the barely audible immediately to the loud and abrasive.\u00a0 In his solo, Davis explores the outer-regions of rhythm, using eerie melodies spliced with long pauses and surprising entrances.\u00a0 With \u201cPrayer,<\/i>\u201d <\/i>one is not sure who is being summoned, God or the Devil.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

My favorite song on Porgy And Bess <\/i>is \u201cBess, You Is My Woman Now,\u201d a beautiful version of the well-known love proclamation.\u00a0 Truthfully, the arrangement of \u201cBess, You Is My Woman Now,\u201d both in style and orchestration, does not vary much from the opera\u2019s version.\u00a0 But Davis\u2019 interpretation of the melody is a wonderful example of his ingenious ability to transform a song.\u00a0 In the original, Porgy proclaims his love as a definitive statement: \u201cBess, you is my woman now!\u201d Under Davis\u2019 control, the statement becomes more inquisitive: \u201cBess, you is my woman now?\u201d\u00a0 Davis\u2019 version evokes the common emotion one feels when expressing love without surety of reciprocation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So is there anything I can criticize about Porgy And Bess?\u00a0 <\/i>Well, I can say this: I once loaned it to a friend who offered a bit of criticism.\u00a0 While I do not remember his exact words, his critique went something along these lines: \u201cI put on Porgy And Bess, <\/i>tried to do some housework, noticed that the album was too intense for me to do anything else but listen to it, so I turned it off and finished my housework.\u201d\u00a0 That being said, I offer a warning.\u00a0 Porgy And Bess <\/i>is not for your parties, social gatherings, dates or any other occasion where it might be background music.\u00a0 In fact, I have difficulty even listening to it when other people are in the room.\u00a0 That may be the reason I am so drawn to this album.\u00a0 This music demands attention.\u00a0 By exploring the musical possibilities of the opera, Evans and Davis provide the listener with a daring and evocative expose on the human experience.\u00a0\u00a0 I can think of no better purpose for an album.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

*While the liner notes claim that Davis uses a flugelhorn on \u201cSummertime,\u201d <\/i>this reviewer contends that he is actually playing a trumpet.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":29900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7400],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41522","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-miles-davis","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41522"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41522"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}