The Great American Songbook: "Summertime"

Written by: George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward

First performed by: Abbie Mitchell, 1935

How many popular songs can you name that were composed for an opera? Sure, some would balk at just classifying Porgy and Bess as an opera when it's a vibrant hybrid of jazz, musical theater, and classical traditions. Maybe that's why so many of the numbers (or should I call them arias?) had such crossover appeal; George Gershwin wrote music across genres. And did he ever know how to place a song. Imagine the premiere in downtown Boston, September 1935: the curtain rises on Clara, who rocks with her baby and sings a lullaby.

          Summertime
          And the livin' is easy.
          Fish are jumpin'
          And the cotton is high.


          Oh, your daddy's rich
          And your momma's good-lookin'.
          So hush, little baby,
          Don't you cry.

George Gershwin's vocal line wavers on "summertime," the voice bending in the heat and finally drooping, resting on "easy." Right after the soprano relaxes into the "easy" life, Heyward's lyrics convey both restlessness (jumping fish) and the character's race, the pre-Civil War importance of cotton still weighing on Southerners' minds. Before the foreshadowing grows too heavy, the lyrics turn from the tragic to the whimsical. Clara envisions a rich daddy, not like anyone currently in Catfish Row (though it used to be where the moneyed aristocrats lived), and fashions herself "good-lookin.'" In its plaintiveness, the melody remains inventive, falling and swaying like a much-needed summer breeze.

The second verse confirms that "Summertime" is a diegetic lullaby, meaning that Clara knows she is singing a song ("One of these mornings / You're gonna rise up singing"). Little did she realize the breadth of artists who would cover it over the next century. Here are two recordings, Leotyne Pryce in the operatic vein, the second re-interpreted for jazz artists Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Price takes liberties with the notes; riffing didn't begin with Kelly Clarkson, folks. She was one of the prime interpreters of Porgy and Bess in her day. Her "Summertime" is less languid, more of an undaunted spiritual. And in another blast from the past, Louis and Ella ease into Gershwin almost too well. He's full of mischief, she's warm and nurturing. Can they record every standard ever written? (Wait--pretty sure they have.)

If you search around, you might hear "Summertime" sung by everyone from Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin to The Doors and even Scarlett Johansson. Gershwin gives room for all sorts of voices sliding across notes, lingering on syllables. Maybe it's all the gerunds, but there's a presentness to the song, and a comfort as the ending of verse one (crying) resolves with verse two (parents standing by). I imagine "Summertime" in the show like a song passed down across generations. It's always been part of our heritage.