Niko Luetjens' jazz podcast

Nico's Jazz Corner is a podcast that analyzes jazz covers. The first episode focuses on George Gershwin's Summertime. The original version was written for the opera Porgy and Bess and sung by Abby Mitchell in 1935. It has a melancholy feel and is not jazz. Billie Holiday's 1936 cover is more upbeat with clarinets and drums. The podcast suggests keeping the original version in mind when listening to the covers. Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of Nico's Jazz Corner, a podcast that studies, dissects, and reviews all kinds of jazz. Today, for my very first episode, I will be analyzing five different covers of George Gershwin's Summertime, which I'm sure you know, by various artists throughout the decades, starting in the mid-1930s and ending in the late 1990s. After its release in 1935, it quickly became a jazz standard and eventually the most recorded song in the world. Now, to get into some history behind the song. In 1934, George Gershwin wrote the original Summertime for the opening aria of the opera Porgy and Bess as a lullaby for the main singer's baby, with lyrics that speak of prosperity and security. For example, the lyrics that go, hush little baby, don't you cry. However, the song is highly ironic. The singer and baby are poor and black during the Jim Crow era, and thus, the lyrics offer a false comfort. In this way, it represents the singer's dreams of a better life. Many people think of Porgy and Bess as a musical, when in fact it was written by Gershwin, who came from a musical theater background, to be his very first opera. Although jazz-inspired, the original cover of Summertime was to be performed by a classically trained opera singer. Written in the minor key, it has a slightly melancholy feel. The first ever performance of Summertime was sung in 1935 by American soprano Abby Mitchell, which I will be playing a 30-second clip of now, just so you can base your opinions of the covers on the original version. So here you go. I've actually decided to play the entire song, so here it is. I've actually decided to play the entire song, so here it is. I've actually decided to play the entire song, so here it is. As you can probably hear from the clip, it is quite gloomy and has a pretty slow tempo. There are no drums, rather just what seems to be violins and clarinets, making her voice the most prominent instrument. It's also not jazz, it's opera, so that makes sense. Nonetheless, it sounds beautiful, and I recommend that you keep this original version in mind when we're listening to the upcoming covers. So the first version we're going to be looking at is Billie Holiday's, which was recorded in 1936, and as you'll see, it has a much quicker tempo and is way more upbeat. The intro distinctly features a trumpet with a mute and drums, which are seemingly some sort of conga. However, throughout the majority of the song, the most prominent instruments are clarinets, and the guitar and bass keep the tempo in the background. I'm going to play it for you now. 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It feels very exotic to me, which makes me feel like I'm on vacation in the summertime, which is very fitting for this song, and it feels very singable because he does stay on the melody pretty well, which I really like, along with the sound of the clarinet and guitar, but I really feel like I'm able to sing along with this version, which is nice, and I really get to recognize and enjoy the song. Okay, so now we're going to be looking at a third version of the song by Miles Davis, which was recorded in 1959, so a little bit later, jumping ahead. The prominent instrument is, as you could probably guess, the trumpet, which seems to have a harmon mute on it. In the background, some trumpets play harmonically, and they play this repetitive, mysterious melody that kind of moves up the scale. Davis plays the trumpet in a way that plays with its sound level, so it kind of goes from quiet to loud and soft to intense and vice versa, and this makes the song feel kind of exciting and unpredictable. It conveys an elegant and ominous mood, yet simultaneously relaxed and laid back, like a lazy summer evening, due to its slower tempo and swingy, dancey feel, given by the double bass cymbal and brief interjections from the tuba. I'll be playing the song now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I really like Miles Davis, so I might be a bit biased when I say that I really like this version, too. It feels pretty dancey and like something I would hear at a real, like, old-fashioned dancing event because of that swingy feel with the cymbals, so I really like this song, too. The next version we're going to be looking at is Coltrane's version recorded in 1961. I must say, this version is the craziest and longest at about eleven and a half minutes, which is very fitting for him as an artist. He plays rapid rhymes with many notes per minute, also classic Coltrane. It is the most dissonant in its melody and tempo and seems to be the most improvised of all the versions. The head is only merely hinted at a few times in the song, as it is mostly improv. The prominently featured instrument is the saxophone, which Coltrane solos on for most of the amount of time. In the background, we hear the piano, a walking bass line, and drums that make most use of the cymbal. After about four minutes of straight Coltrane soloing, which I must say is very impressive, comes the piano solo. Just like the sax, there is a large use of dissonance and quick tempo. After about two minutes of that, the double bass solo begins, which is accompanied by light drums and is slower in tempo but still keeps the use of dissonance at large. Next comes the drum solo, which is intense and changes tempo multiple times. At about the 10-minute mark, Coltrane comes back in to finish off the song with another sax solo. In the interest of time, I will spare you the 11-minute listen by playing a short clip of each instrumental solo, as well as the very end, where the head is explicitly repeated once more. Here are the clips now. Here are the clips now. Here are the clips now. Here are the clips now. Here are the clips now. Here are the clips now. Here are the clips now. Okay, so that was obviously Coltrane's solo, and I played a pretty good amount of it. I'm going to play a shorter bit of all the rest of the solos, and then I'll play the head at the end. So, here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. And now for the last 30 seconds of the song. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. Here you go. It's got a slow, groovy tempo carried by the double bass, and the smoothness of the sax and Mitchell's voice feel dreamlike. The harmonica adds an element of flashiness, but not in an overbearing way, rather giving the song a rustic and passionate feel. Here's the song now. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Summertime in the living sea, sea Fish are jumping in the car when it's night Your daddy's rich and your mama's good looking So hush little lady, don't you cry My love is morning in the rising sea Spread your wings and take to the sky Rise in the morning and no one's gonna find you Not without daddy and mommy standing by Summertime in the living sea, sea Fish are jumping in the car when it's night Your daddy's rich and your mama's good looking So hush little lady, don't you cry My love is morning in the rising sea Summertime in the living sea, sea Fish are jumping in the car when it's night Your mama's rich and your daddy's so good looking So hush little lady, don't you cry My love is morning in the rising sea Spread your wings and take to the sky Rise in the morning and no one's gonna find you Not without daddy and mommy standing by Summertime Okay, so that was all the five versions I wanted to listen to today. I hope that you enjoyed them. Thank you so much for listening to the very first episode of Nico's Jazz Corner. And I hope you enjoyed today's tunes as much as I did. See you next time, and don't forget to listen to some jazz at least once a day. It's good for the soul. As I like to say, a bit of jazz a day keeps the doctor away. Bye now, see you next time.