Porgy and Bess - The Jim Cullum Jazz Band

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Jazz is the voice of the American Soul"

— George Gershwin, Theatre Magazine, June 1926

Porgy and Bess is an English-language [light] opera composed in 1934 by George Gershwin, with a libretto written by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin from Heyward's novel Porgy and later play of the same title.

Porgy and Bess was first performed in New York City on September 30, 1935, and featured an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring artistic choice at the time.

If you’ve ever wondered what the P and B Jazz score sounded like in Gershwin’s mind’s eye at the time he was composing it in the mid-1930’s, then you need to look no further than the double CD by the Jim Cullum Jazz Band - Porgy and Bess - Live [Riverwalk- RVW; June 1, 2016].

Jim Cullum died on August 11, 2019 and we wanted to remember him on these pages with this overview of one of his greatest recordings.

The Musicians:

JIM CULLUM - cornet, leader. ALLAN VACHE - Clarinet, MIKE PITTSLEY - trombone, JOHN SHERIDAN - piano, DON MOPSICK - string bass, HOWARD ELKINS - banjo & guitar, ED TORRES - drums, Narration by - WILLIAM WARFIELD

Porgy and Bess musical arranging by John Sheridan with Randy Reinhart, Allan Vache and Jim Cullum.

Bandleader and cornetist Jim Cullum says that performing George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess as a jazz piece has been the highlight of his 50-year musical life. In performances on tour across the country, the Cullum band's original jazz transcription of the Gershwin score has captured critical acclaim for its originality and for including virtually all the music from Gershwin's folk opera.

This 1992 performance at The Landing in San Antonio is unique among the many jazz interpretations of Porgy and Bess for its inclusion of the distinctive and highly personal narration by bass-baritone William Warfield, known for his definitive portrayals of Porgy playing opposite Leontyne Price in the 1950s; and in the completeness of the musical selections— there are 28 compositions on the double album, including the little-known pieces from Gershwin's opera, Buzzard Song and Oh, Doctor Jesus; and for its electric live performance captured at The Landing in San Antonio by the Grammy award winning audio team of Ed Greene, Jim Anderson and Malcolm Harper

The Dolby SR two-track recording from the audio truck on the night of performance had never been played back and was sourced for this recording. Every attempt was made by the audio team to preserve the warmth of the original analog recording in mastering and manufacturing the album.

Jim Cullum offered these comments about Gershwin, Porgy and Bess and this recording project in these excerpts from his insert notes to the CD.

"Jazz is the voice of the American Soul"

— George Gershwin, Theatre Magazine, June 1926

“George Gershwin is a unique figure in our history. Born in 1898, he had become a virtuoso pianist and had begun his songwriting career well before his 20th birthday. Soon he was able to easily write song after song. By the time of his early death in 1938, he had amassed a total of about 900 songs.

Gershwin's work is set apart from that of his contemporaries by his acclaimed symphonic works and most importantly by the opera Porgy and Bess. The more you dig into the score of Porgy and Bess, the more amazed you will become.

In the CD that accompanies these notes, you will hear the result of applying jazz instruments to operatic roles. Virtually every song from the opera is included, and the listener may follow the flow of emotion and drama from the storyline and from Gershwin's melodies. Often the clarinet takes the role of Bess, Clara or the grieving Serena, while Porgy and Crown's voices are rough and are usually portrayed by cornet with plunger. Softer, prettier and gentler solos by other instruments provide relief and pacing and so well display Gershwin's sensitivity. Our instrumental street vendors, the Strawberry Woman, Honey Man and Crab Man add more texture as we hear them approach from offstage, as they do in the opera, William Warfield's storytelling, much of which is taken directly from the script, sometimes includes the dialect of the region and the era. Key points regarding stereotypes, resistance by the Metropolitan Opera Company to an all-black cast and Gershwin's insistence on authenticity are made by Mr. Warfield in his backstage interview.

Special praise is due our arrangers, particularly John Sheridan who remarked about the work saying, "That Gershwin score was like a cookbook to me. All I did was follow the recipe."

Porgy and Bess, written by George Gershwin in collaboration with lyricist Ira Gershwin and writer DuBose Heyward, now stands before the world as the greatest opera ever created by Americans. Performing it as a jazz piece has been the highlight of my musical life.”

Jazz played in the classic manner is the hallmark of cornetist Jim Cullum and The Jim Cullum Jazz Band's highly personal and original style. The drive of 'hot jazz' cornet in the tradition of King Oliver is tinged with the lyrical melancholy of Bix Beiderbecke in Cullum's playing, honed over more than five decades as a performer and bandleader.

The Jim Cullum Jazz Band is a seven piece, acoustic jazz ensemble recognized worldwide for its commitment to performing classic jazz authentically and with integrity. The Cullum Band embraces repertoire from 19th century cakewalks to pre-WWII small, hot ensembles with emphasis on both familiar and obscure compositions of Jelly Roll Morton, George Gershwin, W.C. Handy, Hoagy Carmichael, traditional gospel hymns and the blues. While early jazz repertoire and collective improvisation are at the basis of the Band's sound, the ensemble transcends the genre, bringing original compositions, exquisite arrangements and virtuosity to the form.

Widely known for their long-running, weekly Riverwalk Jazz radio series currently in its 25th and final season, Stanford University now offers the complete archive of

The Jim Cullum Riverwalk Jazz Collection streams nonstop online at riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu.

The Jim Cullum Jazz Band continues to perform at its home base in San Antonio, Texas and tours nationally and internationally. Here’s their website www.jimcullum.com.

William Warfield was acclaimed throughout the world as one of the great vocal artists of his time. His recital debut on March 19, 1950, in New York's Town Hall placed him in the front rank of concert artists overnight. His career flourished in an assortment of memorable roles without interruption until his death in 2002.

An early professional role had Warfield singing the lead in the national touring company of the Broadway hit Call Me Mister. He played Joe in the MGM motion picture adaptation of Jerome Kern's landmark musical Showboat, where he sang Ol' Man River and immediately made it his own.

As the New York Times noted in 2002, "Mr. Warfield's voice was deep, powerful and supple, and he invested all his work...with a combination of elegance and warmth that were his trademark." The most notable role of his career was the lead in George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, where he co-starred with Leontyne Price, whom he married in 1952.

William Warfield received many honors and awards, including a 1984 Grammy in the category for Best Spoken Word album for his narration of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait. Mr. Warfield began touring with The Jim Cullum Jazz Band in 1989, lending his highly personal storytelling of the Porgy and Bess narrative to the Cullum ensemble's jazz band interpretation of Gershwin's folk opera. William Warfield was scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall at the time of his death at the age of 82.

Because of the complex standards that the Gershwin estate has placed on the performance of Porgy and Bess, recordings of the full opera are rarely made.

Do yourself a favor and don’t miss this one by Jim, William and “the boys in the band.”

Previn, Potts and Porgy

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Andre Previn was right about the deluge that followed Samuel Goldwyn’s 1959 release of his film version of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

It seems as though every Jazz group had a recorded version of it and each of these had a different “take” on the tunes that made up Gershwin’s memorable score.

Actually, I rather liked the outpouring. It was wonderful to hear so many unique adaptations of these timeless Gershwin melodies.”

Over the years, however, one of these adaptations have remained my favorite - The Bill Potts Big Band: The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess. It was originally issued as a United Artist LP and subsequently as a Capitol Records CD [CDP 7 95132 2].

Many of the aspects that make Bill Potts an arranger of singular style and substance are detailed in the following CD insert notes by Andre Previn.  

“In the musical history of the twentieth century there have been a shamefully large number of instances wherein a noteworthy musical work has been acclaimed at its premiere and has subsequently, through either public apathy or a lack of performances, declined into near oblivion.  

George Gershwin's opera, Porgy and Bess, is an encouraging example of the reversal of this procedure. When it was first heard in 1935 there was quite some dissension among the critics about its lasting values, and although it was heralded as something of a milestone by much of the audience, it certainly did not create a national furore at the time.

Since then, each subsequent revival has brought it greater acclaim and greater popularity until now, in 1959, it has become a staple in the repertoire of almost every country in the world. Road companies have taken it to the four corners of the earth, symphonic suites are played by orchestras everywhere, countless recordings have been distributed, and surely every singer of great or little note has programmed its highlights.

Nonetheless, it seems as though the next few years will bring about an undreamed-of amount of hearing for the music of "Porgy." Samuel Goldwyn's motion picture production of the opera was premiered in June, 1959 and since it was one of the most widely publicized and heralded pictures in many years, it prompted practically every recording artist in the business to bring forth an album of selections from the score. Apart from the movie soundtrack version there will be literally dozens of vocal albums, symphonic syntheses, reissues of the various Broadway casts, dance bands, choral arrangements, novelty groups, and jazz versions.  

Now, just within the framework of the last-mentioned category; never before have so many jazz artists of so many divergent styles attempted interpretations of the same music. The range covers the entire compass of jazz from the excellent to the indifferent to the downright pointless; many of them attempting to the best of their musical ethics to say something interesting and important and many, alas, simply cashing in on what looks like a sure thing. Since this plethora of recordings was well known in advance by all recording artists, it became a matter of courage for Jack Lewis to join the pack with an album led by a relatively unknown musical personality, realizing that every giant in jazz would be recording the score. The man he chose to lead and orchestrate the score was a man whose musical personality has unfortunately hitherto been unknown to the general public, namely: Bill Potts.

The term, "musician's musician," is an overworked one but nonetheless very true in Bill's case.  His name has cropped up innumerable times in musicians' discussions of their favorite arrangers. This alone is quite notable, since Bill has chosen up to now to remain in the Washington, D.C. area for all of his productive life.  He was the head arranger for Willis Conover's "The Orchestra," an organization which, in the opinion of visiting musicians, rivalled the Washington Monument and the National Art Gallery as one of the indispensable attractions in the Capital.  Since the unfortunate demise of "The Orchestra," Bill has contributed scores to a great many bands, but it is only with this album that he is presented fully and correctly.  

In the fall of 1958 I was one of the aforementioned visiting musicians in Washington; it was at that time that I first met him.  He is a young man of Dickensian proportions with added touches of Peter Ustinov and Captain Ahab. This imposing structure, however, houses one of the most soft-spoken and self-effacing gentlemen I have ever met.  His musical curiosity is insatiable; he is willing to talk music until six in the morning, pause for coffee, then start over again.  

Generally, it was Bill's habit to begin these musical discussions with me while seated in his small open sports car and considering that I, as a Californian, have grown more and more thin-blooded, I can think of no greater compliment to Bill's opinions and ideas than to say that I hardly noticed the cold. At the time I was halfway through my assignment as the musical director of the film version of Porgy and Bess and Bill was in the process of writing his jazz version of the score.

With typical candor he made what seemed like an amazing and somewhat apprehensive confession to me; the fact that he had never before been called upon to arrange and orchestrate another composer's music, but had restricted himself solely to his own originals.  Now, half a year later, after hearing the results of his labors, I can only say that he never should have wasted a moment worrying about it.

One of the most difficult attributes to come by in today's jazz scene is originality.  By that I don't necessarily mean a "far-out" method of playing or writing but rather an immediately recognizable personal imprint upon the music rendered. This is, God knows, as true of arrangers as it is of performers. Too many gifted facile writers pattern themselves wholly or in part after the few innovators. The Basie school of writing currently has the largest following, closely followed by the imitators of Ellington, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Holman, John Lewis, etc.  Bill Potts is an originator in the truest and best sense of that word.  It is impossible to hear more than eight bars of any of his arrangements without recognizing the man behind the pencil.  

His style is made up of many things: there is an ever-present aura of strength and vitality, an awareness of all the possible dynamic shadings from pp to ff, a rare concern for voice-leading, and a strong preference for ensembles rather than interludes between solos.  

His arrangements have a wonderfully timeless quality about them; he is not concerned with the fad of the moment or of the year, nor does he strive for orchestral effects simply for the sake of the effects. The orchestrations are sensible and mature, while creating the same feeling of freedom and spontaneity usually found in a solo voice. And over all they swing from bar one right through to the end of the coda.

It is my personal opinion that the detailed analyses of record albums, section by section, solo by solo should be separate from the notes. That's why I will not go into them here. The personnel of the orchestra conducted by Bill Potts is indeed a gleaming one, as can be gathered by the listing qf its members, and the band plays with an esprit and a precision hardly ever encountered in a "one-time-together" studio ensemble. …

Having worked on the film version of "Porgy" for a period covering six months; having been exposed to the music of the score innumerable times; having written some two and a half hours worth of orchestrations of the score—I'm sure it would be natural for me to be practically immune to further versions of it; proof of the strength of the music and of Bill Potts' unique creativity is that I found myself listening to this album with the attentiveness and pleasure of a premiere performance.

The Musician's Union requires by law that arrangers be paid a certain amount per page of four bars each; if that law were changed to read that arrangers be paid per each new idea, Bill Potts could retire today a rich man.”

—ANDRE PREVIN May 12,1959

The following video features Bill Potts’ arrangement of Bess, You Is My Woman with solos by Phil Woods on alto saxophone and Charlie Shavers on muted trumpet.

Eddy Louiss, Ivan Jullien and PORGY & BESS

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. (...) Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it."

- Ernest Hemingway, 1960 Extract from A Moveable Feast

“French trumpeter, arranger, composer, and conductor Ivan Jullien paired up with organist Eddy Louiss for this expansive 1971 version of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. An ambitious combination of small-group jazz, big band, and Gil Evans-style orchestration, Jullien's Porgy and; Bess also found him eschewing stylistic traditions with charts that touched upon hard bop, old-school swing, and AM pop, and even made room for bursts of electric fusion. It remains a landmark of French jazz and one of Jullien's most memorable recordings.”

- Matt Collar, AllMusic.com

Some years ago, I remember mentioning to a friend who lived and worked in Paris that I didn’t recall seeing much in the way of French big band Jazz.

“That’s because you don’t know where to look for it,” he said.

A few days later, he sent me some recordings that featured compositions and arrangements by Ivan Jullien, someone I had known primarily as a French Jazz trumpet player.

If you’ll excuse the bad attempt at a pun, Jullien’s work just blew me away.

I was particularly impressed with his collaboration with Hammond B-3 organist Eddy Louiss on George Gershwin’s light opera Porgy and Bess which was produced in 1971 as a Riviera LP [421.083] and later released as number 41 of the Jazz in Paris CD series [Gitanes Jazz Productions 013 039-2].

The respected French Jazz critic Alain Tercinet had this to say about the recording in his insert notes to the CD [Martin Davies translated these from the French.].

"An organ springing out of the sea

It's not Nemo, it's Eddy

Hoisting the organ on the horizon

Heave ho, it's Louiss".

"That's Claude Nougaro's tribute in song to one of his most loyal accompanists, an arranger and composer too, on occasion. For Paris Mai, for example, or C'est Eddy. "He's a genius", said Stan Getz, who'd fallen under the spell of his music and joined his trio on impulse. Eddy Louiss is now a man of Rabelaisian fanfares, the soul of Multicolore Feeling, and he, better than anyone, knew how to make the Hammond organ dance — an awkward instrument to say the least, if not as ungainly as a Henri II antique — probably because Eddy maintained a passionate and impassioned relationship with it : one day it was "Little by little, the organ became vital to me, it totally integrated itself inside my musical universe" - and the next day : "This organ's a bloody pain. Sometimes all my feelings just can't get out. As if the instrument had its own inertia. Except when I'm playing well, obviously."

That was something that happened more often than not. It happened on November 12th 1971 too, when Eddy was recording Ivan Jullien's rather iconoclastic version of "Porgy and Bess". A trumpeter and arranger before he turned to leading a band, Ivan Jullien had acquired solid big-band experience during his years with Daniel Jeannin — who'd been in the pit orchestra at the Olympia theatre for a time — and also with Jacques Denjean. He'd led the Paris Jazz All Stars in 1965, when it came into existence for a concert in Hamburg. "For us French musicians", he said, "it was quite a revelation, because French jazz in the big-band format was something we'd stopped believing in !" The following year, he recorded his first album with the cream of France's musicians, an album entitled "Paris Point Zero". It was during those sessions that he was inspired to throw an immortal line at Michel Portal : "Listen, old man, we're not looking for perfection here, this is jazz we're doing !"

This time there were 26 musicians, among them Benny Vasseur [trombone]and Jean-Louis Chautemps [tenor sax], but also Michel Grallier [piano], Pierre Cullaz [guitar] and Andre Ceccarelli [drums]. However, except for Ceccarelli, who was omnipresent and consistently apposite, and Ivan Jullien, who played a few short phrases on trumpet, none of them took a solo. They weren't there to provide accompaniment, but to provide an envelope that surrounded, submerged (and brought back to the surface) the Hammond of Eddy Louiss. The orchestra did this with sumptuous, moving layers of sound in a spirit that was inherited from Gil Evans, but contained nothing borrowed….

Would Gershwin have approved if he'd heard his work without such famous pieces as Summertime and It ain't necessarily so? Would he have recognised his Gone, gone, gone or There's a boat dat's leavin' soon for New York ? Behind the two long and abundant performances by Eddy Louiss, who navigates his instrument through all kinds of weather ? Probably not, but given the result, he would certainly have taken his hat off to them."

[Ed. note: Gone, Gone, Gone is not part of the original Gershwin opera, but was written in the spirit of it by Gil Evans for the recording of Porgy and Bess that he arranged for Miles Davis].

Eddy, with drummer Andre Ceccarelli’s “urging,” really turns it loose on the following video montage which is set to Ivan Jullien’s arrangement of There’s a Boat Dats Leavin’ Soon For New York.

I’m sure glad that my Parisian ami showed me where to look for French Big Band Jazz.

Porgy and Bess Goes Latin - Nueva Manteca

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

For background information regarding the PORGY AND BESS GOES LATIN phase of our continuing theme of Jazz interpretations of the Gershwin opera, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought these insert notes from Nueva Manteca which was released by the Dutch-based Latin Jazz group in 1994 [Lucho 7714-2] might prove helpful.

“The idea of performing the gorgeous songs from Gershwin's masterwork 'Porgy and Bess' in a jazz format has been realized often in a most convincing way. One only has to think of the deeply moving version by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong with the Russ Garcia Orchestra or that other classic: The Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration. Remarkably enough a Porgy and Bess album has never been recorded in a Latin version.

George Gershwin himself loved jazz and greatly admired Thomas 'Fats' Waller and Art Tatum. He also had a deep interest in what we nowadays call 'World Music'. In 1932 he embarked for Havana, Cuba. Enjoying the good life, Gershwin found Cuba 'most interesting, especially for its small dance orchestras who play most intricate rhythms most naturally', as he wrote to a friend upon his return.

Inspired by his short visit to Cuba, Gershwin wrote the symphonic work 'Rumba'. According to his own words, in Rumba “... [he] endeavoured to combine the Cuban rhythms with his own original thematic material.” On the title page of the score Gershwin instructed that the players of four of the Cuban instruments he had brought back from Cuba — bongos, gui'ro, maracas and claves — should be placed in front of the conductor's stand, visible to the audience.

In 1934 Gershwin made another field trip. This time he travelled from New York to Charleston, South Carolina. His purpose was to visit the setting of his opera 'Porgy and Bess'. He also wanted to meet the people about whom librettist, DuBose Heyward, had written. From Charleston, Gershwin took the ferry to Folly Island. This island belongs to the group of Georgia Sea Islands. The Afro-American inhabitants speak the Gullah dialect with a vocabulary comprising some four thousand words. This dialect seems of West African derivation.

Although Gershwin found himself in a totally foreign environment far away from the glitter of Broadway, he immensely enjoyed 'going native' and immersed himself in the social and musical life. He frequently attended prayer meetings, participating in the so called 'Ring Shout'. The Ring Shout is a shuffling dance in anticlockwise direction accompanied by complex rhythmic patterns beaten out by feet and hands. Ring Shouts are a familiar characteristic of the 'Sanctified' and 'Pentecostal' churches and are believed to be derived from West African dances. The term 'shout' possibly stems from an Arabic word 'saut', said to be used by West African Muslim pilgrims to indicate the procession around the Kaaba [sacred Black Stone] in Mecca [Saudi Arabia].

Gershwin's friends discovered that the summer of 1934 spent on the Sea Islands was to the composer more like a homecoming than an exploration. The big city songs and the pulse of New York had found their counterpart in the haunting spirituals and body rhythms of the Gullah People. Gershwin had come under the spell of World Music, his masterworks 'Rumba' and 'Porgy and Bess' being the lasting reflection of it.

SUITE PORGY AND BESS GO LATIN - All compositions by George Gershwin.

All tracks arranged by Jan Laurens Hartong except nos. 2 & 6. 'Summertime' arranged by Ben van den Dungen. 'Bess, you is my woman now' arranged by Ben van den Dungen and Jarmo Hoogendijk.

NUEVA MANTECA:

JAN IAURENS HARTONG Piano,leader

TOON DE GOUW Trumpet

JARMO HOOGENDUK Trumpet

BEN VAN DEN DUNGEN Saxophones

BOUDEWIJN LUCAS Acoustic bass, bass guitar

LUCAS VAN MERWIJK Drums & percussion, bata drum (Itotele)

MARTIN VERDONK Tumbadora, quinto, chekere, bata drums (Yia ami Okoukole)

NILS FISCHER Timbales, conga's, bongo's and bata drums

guest; ALAOR SCARES Brazilian percussion

The following video features the group’s unique Overture to their Latin Jazz version of Porgy and Bess: