Gershwin Orchestral Work

This unique album is a wonderful snapshot of American jazz in an orchestral setting. Most classical music aficionados are familiar with George Gershwin and his works such as Rhapsody in Blue, but there are also a number of less-famous composers who wrote around the same time who are no less brilliant. These composers also interacted with and influenced each other. For example, James Price Johnson also wrote a rhapsody, entitled Yamekraw, Negro Rhapsody, which is a sophisticated work full of tempo changes, varied rhythms, and various moods and character. (William Grant Still orchestrated this piece.) Yamekraw swings and is syncopated, giving it a very dancelike feel, and the Hot Springs Music Festival Symphony Orchestra does an excellent job bringing the music alive without ever making it rigid. Not only do it play beautifully on this first piece, but also through the rest of the album, where it truly captures all the moods jazz pieces require while never losing strong classical technique. It is much to conductor Richard Rosenberg's credit that all of the pieces have energy and good musical taste.

This two-disc Porgy and Bess records not an entirely new version of the Gershwin opera, but a claimed improvement on the "complete" version that surfaced in the 1970s and changed the opera from a series of set pieces to a living work of drama.

George Gershwin - The Authentic George Gershwin - Jack Gibbons (2004) {4CD Set Sanctuary Classics CD RSB 401}
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© 2004 Sanctuary Classics | CD RSB 401
Jazz / Classical / Solo Piano

This plates are wonderful. I was charmed, and when I close my eyes now, I see scenes with American in Paris or Porgy and Bess but my favorite piece of music is Rhapsody in Blue. It's more than excellent is fantastic. Jack Gibbons perfectly feels the unique tone Gershwin's music, the mixture rythms of jazz with influences of impressionists and clear and beauty melodies. I'm fascinating.

Seiji Ozawa is recognized as one of the supreme Gershwin conductors. Multi award winning blind pianist Marcus Roberts is known as one of the foremostpianists of contemporary jazz. Roland Guerin is not only an instructor for Applied Jazz Bass at the University of NewOrleans, he also toured extensively with Jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, George Benson and Jimmy Scott, and he made recordings with Ellis Marsalis and Allen Toussaint among others. Drummer Jason Marsalis is the son of pianist Ellis Marsalis and the youngest brother of Wynton, Branford and Delfeayo. Together, the four brothers and their father Ellis comprise New Orleans' venerable first family of jazz.