Keeping The Faith

Percy Faith made some excellent albums containing orchestral instrumental treatments of the music from Broadway shows in the 1950s, and here are two of them on one CD. Both were highly ambitious projects for their composers, George Gershwin and Frank Loesser, respectively. Porgy & Bess, of course, was Gershwin's "folk opera," a commercial disappointment in 1935 that grew in stature until, when a film version was released in 1959, the record stores were swamped with recordings of it. Faith matched the ambitions of the score, employing two large orchestras and some notable soloists. Faith brought something of a swing sensibility to his arrangements, but he preserved those gorgeous Gershwin melodies and gave a feel of the passion and tragedy of the story…