I read with interested Mike Nessing’s review of Re-Imagining Gershwin.
I haven’t heard the entire album, I’m only half tracks deep and my impression is Mike underestimates it a little. Of the four songs I’ve heard, two are mahor statements. And two are very bland.
Of the bland one, “They Can’t take That Away from me” is a major disaster… The song is a major part of the American Songbook canon, and Brian has nothing to add to it.
Of the keepers, I’ve written about “Rhapsody” incessantly but “I Loves You, Porgy” is almost as good. It is a bluesy, deeply felt story song and at the heart of the great (I mean, GREAT) opera “Porgy And Bess”. The opera, written in 1935, takes place in the south and is about the crippled Porgy and his relationship with Bess -a sad, troubled mess of a woman. The song is from Bess to Porgy, as she tries to resist her violent lover Crown. It all ends up as you might expect it would.
Wilson doesn’t change the sexes and it is a great idea, having a man sing to another man, it changes the dynamic of the entire song. Better still is the jazz inflections. Gershwin knew from jazz but the song is a blues ballad. Wilson swings it a little and it really shouldn’t work but it does. It’s a wonderful, well thought out performance.