Sugary tribute to the GREAT GERSHWIN
This album, set down in Los Angeles in June last year, in the delightfully named Zipper Concert Hall, brings out the best in two exceptional pianists, drawn from different parts of the keyboard forest but united in their enthusiasm for the dazzling tunes of the sadly short-lived George Gershwin. Its release marks the centenary of the premiere of Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet has recorded more than 50 classical albums but has a sweet tooth. His love of a great tune, the sugarier the better, has been encouraged by his recording partner, the outstanding cabaret artist Michael Feinstein, who both sings and plays Gershwin at the highest artistic level. Here they play some of Gershwin’s finest – I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You and Someone To Watch Over Me – in very different versions. Take
Embraceable You. There is a straight version from Feinstein and a dazzling one that sees Thibaudet playing the late, great Earl Wild’s so-called Virtuoso Etudes on the same unforgettable tune. What an inspiration Gershwin has always been for his fellow artists.
The same technique works just as well on Someone To Watch Over Me: Thibaudet plays Tedd Firth’s arrangement for piano solo, and then Feinstein performs his own effort for voice and piano. They Can’t Take That
Away From Me gets a similar treatment. Other things on this disc, though, will be completely unknown, and were to me, like Sutton Place and Under The Cinnamon Tree. Neither of them especially recognisable as Gershwin and surely only getting an outing here because his name is attached.
There’s a well-crafted liner note, but my advice is just to pour yourself a drink and put the disc on, with some engaging company. The reading can come later. This is not a purchase you will regret.