The Ultimate Collection by George Gershwin
George Gershwin's "The ultimate collection", is a compilation of Gershwin's greatest hits. The compilation is made out of two CD's; the first cd is Gershwins pieces sung by different jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and more… The second cd, is Gerswhin's famous pieces taken from musical shows such as Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue, Cuban overture, Funny face and more.
First Cd:
The cd starts with the song "Strike up the Band " performed by Oscar Peterson. The piece consists of a piano, cello. This song in my opinion sets the mood of the cd. It represents pure jazz music without the vocals. When i close my eyes and listen to this song I picture a club from the 1940's with jazz music and people dancing around. The second song, "Summertime", a very famous jazz piece performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, starts with a horn and an orchestra in the back. The lyrics of the song talks about a slaved woman, looking over her workers child. "Summertime" is sort of a lullaby song. Louis Armstrong's performance in this song is very well done; I really enjoyed his vocals. I also noticed the use of violins in this piece. The song ends with a duet with both of the singers together.
"The man I love" sung by Sarah Vaughan, and "Someone to watch over me" sung by Blossom Dearie, are both typical love songs. I enjoyed the second one more then the first love song, because it is more soulful, only with a piano in the background and great vocal performance by Blossom Dearie.
The mood changes in the next few songs. "They can't take that away from me" sung by Billie Holiday, a very famous p...
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The second piece comes from George Gershwins "Cuban Overture" performed by the pianist Ivan Davis and the Cleveland Orchestra. This song is a mix of Cuban rhythms with George Gershwin's own thematic material. The result of this is a symphonic overture with cuban beats. The next song is a suite from Girl Crazy, great song, i can even imagine the dance sequences in my head through this piece. All the rest of the songs on this cd, are taken out of Gershwin's musicals.
Conclusion:
In my opinion, the second cd of this compilation is much better then the first one, because i enjoyed listening to the classic songs from Gershwin's musicals. The first half of the first cd, is enjoyable with songs like "Summertime", "S' Wonderful etc.
In my opinion the other songs just repeat themselves.
All in all, i give this cd a good mark; it's "compiled" very well.
In the book Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago, LeAlan Johns and Lloyd Newman, as two kids grow up in ghetto, document their life from 1993 to 1996 to show the rest of the America the reality of living in a poor black neighborhood. Through vast interviews, diaries and monologues, Johns and Newman provide a new perspective on the ongoing issues in the ignorant black community; they encourage the black residents to express their point of views on gang, drug, crime, and they also address their hope. Since this book is story with long time span and fragmental writing styles, it is impossible to finish the soundtrack for chapters in detail within eight songs. Therefore, if I am going to be the music composer of the movie based on this book, I would choose eight songs for the following eight themes.
The year was 1966 Frank Sinatra was at the peak of his career. There he stood on the stage in the Copa Room at the Sands Hotel and Casino in front of Count Basie and his Orchestra recording what is considered the best album of his career. The album “Sinatra at the Sands” would be his first album recorded live to be released and the album would achieve gold in sales. Sinatra was in his environment, a cozy salon style venue with an enthusiastic crowd in Las Vegas. The album was recorded by Reprise and the label engineer was Lowell Frank and produced by Sonny Burke. Reprise had formerly recorded two other albums: “Sinatra-Basie” and “It Might As Well Be Swing” with Sinatra and Count Basie, but it was their performance at the Sands Hotel that would promote both performers carriers beyond what either one of them were able to do on the own.
BiblioTech editor Lori Ito Hardenbergh recently mentioned that songs on this album are even organized according to the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system! Check out the following link from Library Journal, which succinctly provides "an abstract" to her recorded tales: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA341766
I chose Cole Porter's 1934 song from Anything Goes, You're The Top. The two lead character's Billy Crocker and Reno Sweeney equally share the lyrics of the song. The lyrics sound flirtatious and fun. It is a light hearted song which sounds as if it is meant to up lift the other person being sung to.
Gershwin began to get a few of his songs set into current musical shows and his popularity began to grow. His first big success came in 1919 when Al Jolson helped him promote Swanee by adding tit to his touring show. This same year, Gershwin also
After hearing the cover I decided to look for the original and found the video of Gershwin himself playing it which was amazing and then I looked up versions from the actual musical which were all great as well. From there I found interest in other works by Gershwin most I mentioned earlier, my favorite would be Summertime. If I wanted to get my family interested the best way would be to play Summertime myself, which I have the sheet music for but the rhythm has been tricky for me to play. So after playing a shoddy version of summertime I would show them the video of Gershwin playing it. I would then move on and show them some of Gershwin’s more accessible works like I’ve Got Rhythm and Rhapsody in
One of Ellington orchestra’s signature tunes is "Take the ‘A’ Train" (1941). This piece was not written by Ellington but by American composer Billy Strayhorn, who became Ellington’s musical collaborator. This piece is very jumpy and light, making you feel like tapping your feet and following the beat. In the background is a piano in stride style that accompanies the brass instruments.
Paying tribute to Ella Fitzgerald is almost a priori to the concept of jazz vocalization itself. Her influence spans generations, genres, and instruments. Her voice is the voice of postwar jazz, and, perhaps especially for people of more recent generations, is probably the one that first comes to mind when we think of ‘classics’ or ‘The Great American Songbook’. Jazz violinist Regina Carter likely knew the idea of an Ella tribute wouldn’t be as novel as her previous two albums, but she seized upon the icon’s 100th birthday and took the advice of friends who saw how Fitzgerald’s music had been a constant influence in her musical life and told her, “why not make an album about it?” Approaching Fitzgerald’s work in fresh light, Carter sifted through
this paper I will discuss Gershwin’s life as a child and his upbringing and how his music
In 1935, Gershwin’s most ambitious work, “Porgy and Bess” opened. He called it a “folk-opera,” and it is now one commonly regarded as one of the most significant American operas of the twentieth century. Through this work, he crossed lines and broke barriers, doing what none before him had. “Porgy and Bess” tells the tale of Porgy, a disabled black beggar living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina, and his attempts to rescue Bess from her violent and possessive lover; it deals with themes of drug addiction, prostitution, violence, and murder. It was based on the novel “Porgy” by DuBose Heyward. “Porgy and Bess” contains some of Gershwin's most sophisticated music, including a fugue, a passacaglia, the use of atonality, polytonality and polyrhythm, and a tone row.
The CD hit number one on Billboard charts almost immediately. This album reminds me of my childhood because I watched the movie over and over. All of the songs have a magical feeling to them. The orchestra in the background of the songs is absolutely beautiful. Some of the songs are just the orchestra and it's amazing that you can tell exactly what emotion is happening in the movie without seeing it. I love every track but my favorites are “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” by Walt Disney Records and “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” by Walt Disney Records which are both Disney
The string quartets of Ludwig Van Beethoven were written over a long period of his life, stretching from 1799 to 1826. The tragedies that occurred throughout Beethoven’s life did not stop him from writing these seventeen masterpieces. The string quartets can be divided into three periods; early middle and late with the first six quartets of Op. 18 marking his ‘early’ works. As Beethoven’s writing began to flourish with creativity and imagination, he wrote the ‘Rasumovsky’ quartets that mark the ‘middle’ period in his career. Finally, the late quartets (also last works that Beethoven ever wrote) mark a cornerstone for various composers writing string quartets through the Romantic era and into the 20th century with use of counterpoint and harmony, especially. This essay will show how these works display great importance in developing the string quartet through Beethoven’s career, and also how their influences can be found in string quartets of other composers.
second act is almost an exact repeat of the first, but Lucky and Pozzo have
I think that the sound in this album sound okay as there is some songs that you can hear the lower quality, of course comparing it to now in days’ records. But probably for its time was good sound. There are two songs I like one is for the dancing rhythm of rock and roll and beat and the other one for the meaningful lyric the first one is “La Bamba”, this is a song that I heard as I was growing up. This song was an influ-ence of Veracruz Folk as I’m familiar with as I was a dancer and a teacher of Folklorico, I guess I choose it because it brings memories when I was a teenager. “La Bamba” in the Ritchie Valens Album was filled by the traditional melody but with a rock drive. There are several instruments that are played in this song for example string bass, pi-ano, electric guitars and drums and can’t forget the vocalist Ritchie Valens. I feel that in this song the electric guitar is the star of the instruments as you are able to hear it more and it also has a solo in the song. Even though “La Bamba” was not a number one hit when it was first released it was still a hit song as it was different from what people was listening to in the 1958, it became popular after his dead and a number one hit after the movie La Bamba. The second song I want to talk about is “Donna” this song was writ-ten by Ritchie Valens as an admiration to his school sweetheart. When this song was released in
The jazz band I observed played a series of six different songs. Although all the songs were categorized as jazz, each song had its own special style and sound to it. The band consisted of three different players. Paul Meyers, the guitarist and composer, Andy Eulau, the bassist, and Dave Rataczak, on drums. The songs performed were entitled “Love for Sale” by Cole Porter, “Once I Loved” by Antonio Carlos Jobim, “Stars” by Paul Meyers, “Blues for Mel” also by Paul Meyers, “Last Night When We Were Young” by Harold Arlen, and “Samba Novo” by Luis Eca.