Summertime (song)
Encyclopedia
"Summertime" is an aria
composed by George Gershwin
for the 1935 opera
Porgy and Bess
. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward
, the author of the novel Porgy
on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin
by ASCAP.
The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard
, described as "without doubt... one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote....Gershwin's highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of African-Americans in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century." Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim
has characterised Heyward's lyrics for "Summertime" and "My Man's Gone Now
" as "the best lyrics in the musical theater". The song has been claimed to be one the most covered songs in the history of recorded music.
in the style of the African American
folk music of the period. Gershwin had completed setting DuBose Heyward's poem to music by February 1934, and spent the next 20 months completing and orchestrating the score of the opera.
The song is sung multiple times throughout Porgy and Bess, first by Clara in Act I as a lullaby
and soon after as counterpoint to the craps
game
scene, in Act II in a reprise by Clara, and in Act III by Bess, singing to Clara's baby.
It was recorded for the first time by Abbie Mitchell
on 19 July 1935, with George Gershwin playing the piano and conducting the orchestra (on: George Gershwin Conducts Excerpts form Porgy & Bess, Mark 56 667).
Heyward’s inspiration for the lyrics was the southern folk spiritual-lullaby All My Trials
, of which he had Clara sing a snippet in his play Porgy. While in his own description, Gershwin did not use any previously composed spirituals in his opera, Summertime is often considered an adaptation of the Afro-American spiritual Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
, which ended the play version of Porgy. Alternatively, the song has been proposed as an amalgamation of that spiritual and the South-Russian Yiddish lullaby Pipi-pipipee. The Ukrainian-Canadian composer and singer Alexis Kochan
has suggested that some part of Gershwin's inspiration may have come from having heard the Ukrainian lullaby
, Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon
(A Dream Passes By The Windows) at a New York City performance by Oleksander Koshetz
's Ukrainian National Chorus
in 1929 (or 1926).
was the first to hit the US pop charts, reaching # 12. Other notable recordings include those by Louis Armstrong
and Ella Fitzgerald
in 1957, Sam Cooke
also in 1957, Gene Vincent
and Miles Davis
in 1958, The Marcels
in 1961, Janis Joplin
with Big Brother and the Holding Company
on the 1968 album Cheap Thrills as well as The Zombies
or Jill Scott
& George Benson
. The most commercially successful version was by Billy Stewart
, who reached # 10 on the Billboard
Hot 100 in 1966.
The Doors
recorded the song live on such albums as Live at the Matrix 1967
, and Live in Boston. The Fun Boy Three released their fifth single, "Summertime" in July 1982.
The band Sublime
based their 1996 song Doin' Time
on Gershwin's song. In 1998, Morcheeba
and Hubert Laws
recorded the song for the Red Hot Organization
's compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS
awareness and fighting the disease. The Yale University
a cappella
group Redhot & Blue
, whose name was inspired by the Cole Porter
musical Red, Hot and Blue
, has recorded the song on many of their 12 studio albums, notably including the 2009 release, riot.
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
composed by George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
for the 1935 opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward
DuBose Heyward
Edwin DuBose Heyward was a white American author best known for his 1925 novel Porgy. This novel was the basis for the play by the same name and, in turn, the opera Porgy and Bess with music by George Gershwin.-Life and career:Heyward was born in 1885 in Charleston, South Carolina and was a...
, the author of the novel Porgy
Porgy
Porgy is a novel written by American author DuBose Heyward in 1925, as well as a play Dorothy Heyward helped him to write which debuted in 1927....
on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
by ASCAP.
The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
, described as "without doubt... one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote....Gershwin's highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of African-Americans in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century." Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
has characterised Heyward's lyrics for "Summertime" and "My Man's Gone Now
My Man's Gone Now
My Man's Gone Now is a song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by DuBose Heyward, written for the folk opera Porgy and Bess . Sung in the original production by Ruby Elzy, it has been covered by many female singers notably Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, and Shirley Horn, among...
" as "the best lyrics in the musical theater". The song has been claimed to be one the most covered songs in the history of recorded music.
Porgy and Bess
Gershwin began composing the song in December 1933, attempting to create his own spiritualSpiritual (music)
Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...
in the style of the African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
folk music of the period. Gershwin had completed setting DuBose Heyward's poem to music by February 1934, and spent the next 20 months completing and orchestrating the score of the opera.
The song is sung multiple times throughout Porgy and Bess, first by Clara in Act I as a lullaby
Lullaby
A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process. As a result they are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every culture and since the ancient period....
and soon after as counterpoint to the craps
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
scene, in Act II in a reprise by Clara, and in Act III by Bess, singing to Clara's baby.
It was recorded for the first time by Abbie Mitchell
Abbie Mitchell
Abriea "Abbie" Mitchell , also billed as Abbey Mitchell, was an American soprano opera singer who sang the role of "Clara" in the premier production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in 1935....
on 19 July 1935, with George Gershwin playing the piano and conducting the orchestra (on: George Gershwin Conducts Excerpts form Porgy & Bess, Mark 56 667).
Musical analysis
Musicologist K. J. McElrath wrote of the song:"Gershwin was remarkably successful in his intent to have this sound like a folk song. This is reinforced by his extensive use of the pentatonic scale (C-D-E-G-A) in the context of the A minor tonality and a slow-moving harmonic progression that suggests a “bluesBluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
.” Because of these factors, this tune has been a favorite of jazz performers for decades and can be done in a variety of tempos and styles."
Heyward’s inspiration for the lyrics was the southern folk spiritual-lullaby All My Trials
All My Trials
All My Trials was a folk song during the social protest movements of the 1950s and 1960s. It is based on a Bahamian lullaby that tells the story of a mother on her death bed, comforting her children, "Hush little baby, don't you cry./You know your mama's bound to die," because, as she explains,...
, of which he had Clara sing a snippet in his play Porgy. While in his own description, Gershwin did not use any previously composed spirituals in his opera, Summertime is often considered an adaptation of the Afro-American spiritual Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" is a traditional Negro spiritual.The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. An early performance of the song dates back to the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee...
, which ended the play version of Porgy. Alternatively, the song has been proposed as an amalgamation of that spiritual and the South-Russian Yiddish lullaby Pipi-pipipee. The Ukrainian-Canadian composer and singer Alexis Kochan
Alexis Kochan
Alexis Kochan is a Ukrainian-Canadian composer and singer. She was born in 1953 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Ukrainian immigrants.-Biography:Singer Alexis Kochan was born in 1953 and raised in Winnipeg's North End...
has suggested that some part of Gershwin's inspiration may have come from having heard the Ukrainian lullaby
Lullaby
A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process. As a result they are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every culture and since the ancient period....
, Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon
Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon
is a Ukrainian lullaby. The title is usually translated into English as "The Dream Passes by the Windows".The song is a traditional lullaby, composed of three verses in a minor tone...
(A Dream Passes By The Windows) at a New York City performance by Oleksander Koshetz
Oleksander Koshetz
Oleksander Koshetz was a Ukrainian choral conductor, arranger, composer, ethnographer, writer, musicologist, and lecturer. He helped popularize Ukrainian music around the world...
's Ukrainian National Chorus
Ukrainian Republic Capella
The Ukrainian Republic Capella was a musical company during and after World War I which toured Europe and North America with the intent to promote Ukrainian culture abroad. The main sponsor of the Capella was Symon Petlura.-Background:During World War I, many events shook Eastern Europe...
in 1929 (or 1926).
Recorded versions
There are over 30,000 known recorded versions of "Summertime". In September 1936, a recording by Billie HolidayBillie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
was the first to hit the US pop charts, reaching # 12. Other notable recordings include those by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
and Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
in 1957, Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke
Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
also in 1957, Gene Vincent
Gene Vincent
Vincent Eugene Craddock , known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rock and roll and rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his Blue Caps, "Be-Bop-A-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly...
and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
in 1958, The Marcels
The Marcels
The Marcels were a doo-wop group known for turning American classical pop songs into rock and roll. The group formed in 1959 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and signed to Colpix Records, with lead Cornelius Harp, bass Fred Johnson, Gene Bricker, Ron Mundy, and Richard Knauss...
in 1961, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
with Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their...
on the 1968 album Cheap Thrills as well as The Zombies
The Zombies
The Zombies are an English rock band, formed in 1961 in St Albans and led by Rod Argent, on piano and keyboards, and vocalist Colin Blunstone. The group scored a UK and US hit in 1964 with "She's Not There"...
or Jill Scott
Jill Scott
Jill Scott is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter, poet, and actress. In 2007, Scott made her cinematic debut in the films Hounddog and in Tyler Perry's feature film, Why Did I Get Married? That year, her third studio album, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3, was released on...
& George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
. The most commercially successful version was by Billy Stewart
Billy Stewart
Billy Stewart was an American musical artist, with a highly distinctive scat-singing style, who enjoyed popularity in the 1960s.-Biography:...
, who reached # 10 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot 100 in 1966.
The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
recorded the song live on such albums as Live at the Matrix 1967
Live at the Matrix 1967
Live at the Matrix 1967 is a double live album by The Doors, compiled and resequenced from recordings made on March 7 and 10, 1967 at The Matrix in San Francisco by club co-owner Peter Abram...
, and Live in Boston. The Fun Boy Three released their fifth single, "Summertime" in July 1982.
The band Sublime
Sublime (band)
Sublime was an American ska punk band from Long Beach, California, formed in 1988. The band's line-up, unchanged until their breakup, consisted of Bradley Nowell , Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh . Michael "Miguel" Happoldt also contributed on a few Sublime songs, such as "New Thrash." Lou Dog, Nowell's...
based their 1996 song Doin' Time
Doin' Time
"Doin' Time" is a single by the American band Sublime. It is featured on their self-titled third album. The lyrics tell of a cheating girlfriend, whose infidelities and poor treatment of her lover makes him feel like he is in prison. "Doin' Time" features heavy usage of lounge music...
on Gershwin's song. In 1998, Morcheeba
Morcheeba
Morcheeba are a British band, mixing influences from trip hop, rock, R&B, and pop.They have produced 7 albums since 1995, two of which reached the UK top ten.-Biography:...
and Hubert Laws
Hubert Laws
Hubert Laws is an American flutist and saxophonist with a 40+ year career in jazz, classical, and other music genres. Alongside Herbie Mann, Laws is probably the most recognized and respected jazz flutist...
recorded the song for the Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
's compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
awareness and fighting the disease. The Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
group Redhot & Blue
Redhot & Blue
Redhot & Blue, usually called Redhot, is Yale University's oldest coeducational a cappella group. Founded in 1977, the group has released twelve albums and toured around the United States and the world. The group’s repertoire is based in the jazz genre, but has expanded to include an array of...
, whose name was inspired by the Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
musical Red, Hot and Blue
Red, Hot and Blue
Red, Hot and Blue is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and the book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1936 and introduced the popular song, "It's De-Lovely" sung by Ethel Merman.-Synopsis:...
, has recorded the song on many of their 12 studio albums, notably including the 2009 release, riot.