June 2011
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Billie Holiday - Summertime
“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”.
Gershwin began composing the song in December 1933, attempting to create his own spiritual in the style of the African American folk music of the period.[4][5] The Ukrainian-Canadian composer and singer Alexis Kochan has suggested that he based the tune on a Ukrainian lullaby, Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon (A Dream Passes By The Windows), which he heard in a New York City performance by Oleksander Koshetz’s Ukrainian National Chorus in 1929. 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).
There are some 2600 different recorded versions of “Summertime”. In September 1936, a recording by Billie Holiday was the first to hit the US pop charts, reaching # 12. Other notable recordings include those by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in 1957, Gene Vincent in 1958, Sam Cooke and The Marcels in 1961, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company on the 1968 album Cheap Thrills as well as The Zombies. The most commercially successful version was by Billy Stewart, who reached # 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966. The band Sublime based their 1996 song Doin’ Time on Gershwin’s song.
Summertime and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry
One of these mornings, you’re goin’ to rise up singin’
Then you spread your wings and you’ll take the sky
But ‘til that mornin’, there’s nothin’ can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin’ byOne of these mornings, you’re goin’ to rise up singin’
Then you spread your wings and you’ll take the sky
But ‘til that mornin’, there’s nothin’ can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin’ by
