Gershwin by Grofé: Original Orchestrations & Arrangements (Lincoln Mayorga, Al Gallodoro, Harmonie Ensemble / New York, Steven Richman)

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At Williams College in Williamstown, MA, there is a treasure trove of a special kind, the Paul Whiteman collection; Whiteman's own music library of some 4,000 scores, literally everything his band/orchestra did that he retained, and Whiteman wasn't in the habit of throwing out arrangements he had paid for. There is much talk and concern about the integrity of George Gershwin's music and the sometimes rough way it has been handled since his death; posthumous hands beefing up the orchestrations, making cuts and changes with the intention of subtly transforming Gershwin's scores into something "suitable for concert performance." It is at Williams where "the truth" may often be found, and this is where Steven Richman and the Harmonie Ensemble of New York have turned for the "Original Orchestrations & Ferde Grofé's Whiteman Orchestra Arrangements" on Harmonia Mundi's release Gershwin By Grofé: Symphonic Jazz. Lincoln Mayorga serves as piano soloist in the familiar Rhapsody in Blue and "I Got Rhythm" Variations; 93-year-old Whiteman veteran Al Gallodoro is heard in the last three tracks, including a solo spin with Mayorga through the Gershwin standard "Summertime."
At first, one should stipulate that this album is a sincere undertaking; Harmonie Ensemble of New York and Steven Richman certainly did well enough on their previous outing, Symphonic Jazz: Grofé and Gershwin on Bridge Records, to qualify in advance the expectation that this Harmonia Mundi disc would at least be as good as the Bridge disc. Alas, Gershwin By Grofé: Symphonic Jazz exposes the seams both in this orchestra and in the quality of research that went into the project. "The Man I Love" is said to be an arrangement from 1938 and a first recording, but it appears that this is identical to a 1928 arrangement that Whiteman used to back a vocal recording by "first lady of radio" Vaughan DeLeath with only minor changes, such as what was a bassoon in 1928 is now a bass clarinet. Such changes may not have been made by Grofé, as he had left the Whiteman organization in 1932, deeply upset and offended over the cavalier manner Whiteman had treated his Grand Canyon Suite at its premiere. While Whiteman continued to play Grofé's music, by 1938 Grofé was leading his own orchestra on radio and probably too busy to rehabilitate this old score.
There's more: the "I Got Rhythm" variations are played much too quickly and this leads to a rather haphazard performance. Intonation is a problem throughout the disc, tending toward too bright a sound, similar to the band Johnny Green leads on the soundtrack to They Shoot Horses Don't They from 1973; a little too modern and cornball to boot. "Yankee Doodle Blues" is heard twice, once in a digital recording and a second time as recorded on a wax cylinder; an interesting idea, even though Whiteman never made cylinders except at rehearsals. Nevertheless, this cylinder, when compared to the original Virginians recording of "Yankee Doodle Blues" more or less confirms the variance in intonation. The trumpet solo in "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" is played on open horn, whereas Henry Busse's solo on Whiteman's recording of the same piece used a mute for at least part of the time. And on and on; what more would you like to hear about? The edit that marries Al Gallodoro's rendering of Ross Gorman's clarinet solo - which sounds as though recorded in a lavatory -- to the front of the full band version of Rhapsody in Blue, the bad time keeping in "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," the piano obbligato that steps on the trombone at the beginning of his solo in the digital recording of "Yankee Doodle Blues?" No, we'll stop here.
The packaging design is beautiful, and Gallodoro's solo on "Summertime" is memorable even though Lincoln Mayorga's piano accompaniment to some is a little cheeky and arch. Gershwin By Grofé: Symphonic Jazz seems not so much an album as an attempt to rescue an album that had gone off the tracks, or a lot of little projects bundled under a single banner. It definitely proves that going back to "original" scores to find the truth is often just the beginning of finding it, and nothing on this disc -- save "Summertime" -- seems as well-digested and worked through as anything Paul Whiteman put his name to.

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