It's "Summertime" George.

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist who were born in Brooklyn, New York in 1896. His Parents were Jewish immigrants from Odessa (Ukraine). He is known for his incursion in both genres, classical and popular. He was as discipline as genius. He always also, had the feeling of insecure about his musical education and was always ready to learn more. Wherever he had a chance, he always asked for advice and lessons from almost every accredited composer he met. His musical education began at an early age and soon he displayed his true interest in music. According to Alex Ross in “The rest is noise”, Gershwin’s teacher, Edward Kilenyi, was the one who introduce to him the idea of winning and audience by making a name in the popular arena rather than in the academic realm of composition. However, in Gershwin, his personal taste and approach to the popular genres, although it was full of success from the beginning, was also avid of being filled with the academic knowledge in which he worked so hard.

Gershwin Rise to fame was quick. He published his first song at eighteen and by the time he turned twenty-one he had already contributed music to several stage shows and had composed the whole score for another. His fist first song, “Swanee”, was written in 1919, ant the early 20s saw him established in the first rank of popular music composers. However he was also, an enthusiastic fan of Debussy and Ravel’s music. He was fascinating with Schoenberg’s approach to music and also Berg’s, and, he was  willing to learn theory and composition with Stravinsky, All this background give the especial “touch” that we can heard in some of his compositions.

His first approach to give to popular genres like “jazz” a respectful place in the concert halls was definitely “Rhapsody in Blue”. The piece is full of syncopated melodies emulating the urban “jazz mood”. All of this mixed with open harmonies, blue notes, dominant-seventh chords and also, a Rachmaninovian love theme in the middle section. All of this creates a new language in American music and gave Gershwin the opportunity to gain high-level admirers.

Arts patron, Otto Kahn, chairman of the board of the Met, spurred Gershwin to write a “jazz grand Opera”. Is in this context that he got the idea of compose an Opera based on an American novel called “Porgy”. The book tells the story of Porgy, a crippled street-beggar in the black tenements of Charleston, South Carolina in the 1920s.  Gershwin began to work in the piece in 1933 with Dubose Heyward, the original author of “Porgy”, The reception of the opera was full of mixed reactions. Some of them claimed to label Gershwin’s piece in the “folk realm” rather than in the academic. Others called the piece a True Opera, full of power and vigor. The controversy was immediate too, because of the African American theme and the use folk tunes, some of them based on real folk and spiritual tunes. The opera had problems also, within the racial aspect. Some of the critics claim that the Opera portrayed racist aspects of African American life.

Despite of all this, we still have the wonderful chance to heard every time the genius introduction of the opera. The orchestra introduction is dotted with a modernism style. We can hear a Wozzeck wink with the use of a two-chord as an ostinato. The great crescendo filled with dissonant harmony and the great climax falls in the first notes of “summertime”.

It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy, the fish are jumplin’ and the cotton is high. This marvelous lullaby serves to introduce the opera and also as a unifying element since we can hear the song three times in different moments of the opera. The song mixes elements of jazz ant the song styles of African-Americans in the southeast of the United States. Its initial chords become a steady-state environment who serves as reference for the performer to play with it and move around them. This characteristic element of free improvisation makes the song into an independent being and is because of this that many renowned artists made “summertime” their own. My personal favorite interpretation is with “Lady Day” queen of the ‘bop’ and the ‘beatniks’, but perhaps, that is a different story.