Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday June 21, 2022: Songs from “Porgy & Bess” and other Gershwin classics

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/56633.html

Theme: Songs from “Porgy & Bess” and other Gershwin classics.

The folk and jazz influenced opera “Porgy & Bess,” composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Du Bose Heyward and Ira Gershwin premiered on Broadway in 1935 and was based on Du Bose Heyward’s novel, Porgy, published in 1925.

Moore & McGregor- Summertime
Dream with Me (Ivernia)

Ella Fitzgerald- I Wants to Stay Here
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Porgy & Bess (Verve)
Lena Horne- My Man’s Gone Now
Harry Belafonte & Lena Horne: Porgy & Bess (RCA)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong- I Got Plenty O’Nuttin
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Porgy & Bess (Verve)
Ray Charles- Buzzard Song
Ray Charles & Cleo Laine: Porgy & Bess (RCA)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong- Bess, You is My Woman Now
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Porgy & Bess (Verve)

Miles Davis- Gone, Gone, Gone
Miles Davis: Porgy & Bess (Columbia/Legacy)

Dave Van Ronk- It Ain’t Necessarily So
Hummin’ to Myself (Gazell)
Cleo Laine- What You Want Wid Bess?
Ray Charles & Cleo Laine: Porgy & Bess (RCA)
Harry Belafonte- A Woman is Sometime Thing
Harry Belafonte & Lena Horne: Porgy & Bess (RCA)
Ella Fitzgerald- Oh, Doctor Jesus
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Porgy & Bess (Verve)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong- Medley: Here Comes de Honey Man/Crab Man/Oh, Dey’s So Fresh and Fine (Strawberry Woman)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Porgy & Bess (Verve)

Nina Simone- I Loves You, Porgy
Nina Simone With Strings (Colpix)
Harry Belafonte- Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess
Harry Belafonte & Lena Horne: Porgy & Bess (RCA)
Phoebe Snow- There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon for New York
Second Childhood (Columbia)
Louis Armstrong- Oh Lawd, I’m On My Way
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong: Porgy & Bess (Verve)

Other Gershwin classics

Samoa Wilson with The Jim Kweskin Band- Our Love is Here to Stay
I Just Want to Be Horizontal (Kingswood)
Willie Nelson- I Got Rhythm
Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (Legacy)
Billie Holiday- Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Songs for Distingué Lovers (Verve)

Dave Van Ronk- Sweet and Lowdown
Sweet & Lowdown (Justin Time)
Scarlett, Washington & Whiteley- Lady Be Good
Sitting on a Rainbow (Borealis)
The Hot Club of Cowtown- Someone to Watch Over Me
Wishful Thinking (Gold Strike)

Oscar Peterson- Liza (The Clouds’ll Roll Away)
The Jazz Soul of Oscar Peterson (Verve)

Next week: The Folkways Legacy of Sam Gesser.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Lynn Miles -- Fall for Beauty

LYNN MILES
Fall for Beauty
True North
lynnmilesmusic.com

As I’ve said before, Ottawa’s Lynn Miles has long been one of my favourite confessional singer-songwriters. This past August, Lynn was one of several artists I hosted in a round-robin set at the Ottawa Folk Festival and I got to preview several of the10 new songs she’s recorded on Fall for Beauty, a collection that ranks with her best work.

It’s often been said that the definition of a good country song is “three chords and the truth,” and that’s something that Lynn, as a veteran singer-songwriter knows well. In her country-flavoured song of that name, Lynn lets us know that three chords and the truth is still what she is looking for as an artistic statement and, indeed, these songs hit that mark time and again in various shades and combinations of contemporary folk, country and mature pop music.

The most powerful song in the collection is also – in terms of the production – the quietest. “Love Doesn’t Hurt,” is an astute, analytical piece about domestic or relationship abuse that draws definitive lines in the sand about what needs to be recognized as unacceptable in a relationship. I think Lynn was right to leave this track to just voice and guitar – nothing else was needed.

Also quite powerful is “Little Bird,” a song she sings compassionately and with understanding to someone who seems to battling with personal demons.

Another highlight is “Fearless Heart,” a wish list song set to a bright, up tempo arrangement and hooky melody that sets out a whole bunch simple desires and one big one, a fearless heart. She shows us that fearless heart in the following song, “I Will,” in which she declares her determination not to be laid low by the kind of setbacks that life throws in our path.

The album ends with the optimistic “Time to Let the Sun,” a sweeping, string-laden piece that recalls era when the likes of Yip Harburg, Harold Arlen and George and Ira Gershwin were creating the Great American Songbook.

Lynn launches Fall for Beauty with concerts Saturday, November 6, 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm, at the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa (613-730-3403) and Wednesday, November 10, 8:00 pm at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto (416-205-5555).

--Mike Regenstreif

Various artists -- Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations

Various Artists
Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations
Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation
Idelsohnsociety.com

(This review is from the September 27, 2010 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

This fascinating compilation was conceived when members of the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation – a group named for Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, the composer of “Hava Negila” – chanced upon a 1958 recording by Johnny Mathis, the African American singer mostly known for his romantic, smooth pop songs, of “Kol Nidre,” the prayer traditionally sung on Erev Yom Kippur.

Singing in the original Aramaic, Mathis, sounds like a veteran cantor on this powerfully stirring interpretation which provides the finale for Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, an album that explores Jewish music, or music composed by Jews in non-Jewish styles or even by gentiles in Jewish styles (or with Jewish cultural references), and performed by African American artists between the 1930s and 1960s.

That there would be a history of musical interaction between Jews and African Americans is hardly surprising. There are examples that stretch across the entire history of 20th century popular, jazz and folk music.

A few of the 15 tracks included on the CD are well known, some are surprising.

Perhaps the most surprising is the version of “My Yiddishe Momme” by the great jazz singer Billie Holiday that opens the album. On this private recording made at the home of a friend in 1956, and accompanied just by pianist, Holiday strips the song of its usual nostalgic sentimentality instead offering it as a poignant, plaintive lament.

One of the most astounding tracks is Aretha Franklin’s 1966 recording of “Swanee,” a song written by Jewish songwriters George Gershwin and Irving Caeser, and made famous by Al Jolson who sang it in blackface, a performance style abandoned many decades ago in recognition of its inherent racism. Franklin – who was yet to record the soul classics that made her a huge star – turns in a soaring, powerful performance that makes Jolson’s version seem completely irrelevant.

Several numbers are guaranteed to put a smile on your face and a tap in your toes. Johnny Hartman’s 1966 version of “That Old Black Magic,” by Jewish composer Harold Arlen, incorporates verses from “Matilda,” the calypso song, and then, more relevantly for this compilation, the Yiddish song “Di Grine Kuzine.” There’s a 1939 version of “Utt Da Zay,” performed by Cab Calloway that Jewish songwriters Irving Mills (Calloway’s manager) and Buck Ram adapted from the traditional Yiddish folksong about a tailor. Calloway, one of the swing era’s great wits, sings the opening verses almost with reverence interspersing them with some scatting that almost sounds like a Chasidic nigun. Soon, though, the band is in full swing mode and his scats let us know that it’s all in fun. And, Slim Gaillard’s 1945 recording of “Dunkin’ Bagel,” is a musical hipster’s guide to such Jewish foods as bagels, matzo balls, gefilte fish, pickled herring, etc.

Fiddler on the Roof provides material for two tracks including a spiritual-sounding instrumental version of “Sabbath Prayer,” recorded in 1964 by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. Later in the CD, the Temptations do a 10-minute, Las Vegas-style medley drawing on many of the musical’s hits.

A most interesting combination of composer, lyricist and performer comes in African American singer Jimmy Scott’s 1969 version of “Exodus.” The music was composed in 1960 as the theme for Exodus, the film based on Leon Uris’ novel about the founding of the State of Israel. The lyrics Scott sings, easily interpreted as being from the perspective of a Jew in his homeland, were written later by American pop singer and religious Christian Pat Boone. Another fascinating combination of song, creators and performer is Lena Horne’s 1963 recording of “Now,” a civil rights song written by Jewish songwriters Adolph Green, Betty Comden and Jule Styne to the melody of “Hava Nagila.”

In a similar theme, “Where Can I Go,” translated by Leo Fuld from a Yiddish song that longs for a Jewish homeland, also became a civil rights anthem in its English-language version. It’s included here with Marlena Shaw’s 1969 recording.

Other highlights include “Sholem,” a wild version of “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem,” recorded in 1959 by Eartha Kitt; the Yiddish love song “Ich Hob Dich Tzufil Lieba,” performed by Alberta Hunter, a 1920s classic blues singer, on a 1982 album at age 87; a 1963 version of the Hebrew folksong, “Eretz Zavat Chalav,” by the great Nina Simone; and collaboration of Jewish singer Libby Holman and African American folk and blues legend Josh White on a 1942 recording of “Baby, Baby,” a variant of the traditional “See See Rider.”

These tracks just begin to illustrate the possibilities inherent in a musical history of black-Jewish relations. Let’s hope this is just the first in a series of volumes.

--Mike Regenstreif

Bonnie Koloc -- Beginnings

BONNIE KOLOC
Beginnings
Mr. Biscuit
bonniekoloc.com

I first met Steve Goodman back in 1973 or ’74 when he did a four-night stand at the soon-to-be-defunct Karma Coffee House in Montreal. Hanging out with him then, we talked a lot about music and it was from Steve that I first heard of Bonnie Koloc. She was one of the best singers around, he told me.

I took Steve’s advice and sought out Bonnie’s early LPs – and what she’s done since – and she’s never failed to draw me in with her gorgeous voice and intelligent folk-pop (with touches of blues and jazz) approach.

Bonnie’s first LP came out in 1971 but she was already well-established as one of top performers on the Chicago folk club scene that included such peers as Steve, John Prine and Fred Holstein. But the music on Beginnings – released for the first time more than 40 years after it was recorded – dates from two 1969 live sets recorded by Rich Warren, then the student host of a folk music show on his college’s radio station. (For many years now, Rich has been the host of the legendary Midnight Special program on WFMT in Chicago.)

Listening to Beginnings, it’s quite obvious that Bonnie was already a great singer and performer; in fact, I would say it’s more even more obvious here than on some of her early LPs with their studio polish.

The sweetly sad “Rainy Day Lady” is Bonnie’s only original among the 16-song, hour-long set mostly devoted to her superb interpretations of tunes drawn from such well-known writers as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell as well as from local artists like Eddie Holstein and Steve Goodman (who was still completely unknown beyond the Chicago folk scene).

Among my favourites on the CD are Bonnie’s versions of Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (despite a couple of lyrical deviations)” and “Just Like a Woman”; Goodman’s “Song for David”; Eddie Holstein's "Victoria's Moring"; and one of the best interpretations I’ve ever heard of Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”

She also does fine versions of such classics as Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” George Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Bessie Smith’s “You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon.”

Bonnie is supported throughout the album by the excellent playing of guitarist Ray Frank and bassist George Stevens. John Mathis plays flute on three songs and two others feature a guy named Bob (from the bar) on harmonica.

--Mike Regenstreif