It has been fully a decade since a trove of forgotten scores by George Gershwin, among others, was rediscovered in a Secaucus, N.J. warehouse.
For those who treasure Gershwin`s work, the glorious news is that much of this material is reaching the public. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, some of the most eagerly anticipated music is still locked up.
On the plus side, the Secaucus discovery has made possible an important series of recordings of Gershwin musicals, the latest installment being Gershwin`s 1924 musical ”Lady, Be Good!” (a joint venture of Roxbury Recordings and Elektra-Nonesuch). Like the ”Strike Up the Band” (1927) and
”Girl Crazy” (1930) recordings that preceded it, the newly released
”Lady, Be Good!” represents the latest scholarship on precisely how this show sounded (see adjoining review).
More than that, the ”Lady, Be Good!” CD is of paramount importance because the show-despite such brilliant pieces as the title number and
”Fascinating Rhythm”-never has received a complete cast recording. Music publishers in the Gershwin era tended to ignore all but the hit tunes in a show, thus allowing the rest of the score to fade into oblivion.
In the case of ”Lady, Be Good!”, the new cast recording puts into sharper focus the boldness and audacity of Gershwin`s work of the early `20s. ” `Lady, Be Good!` was George and Ira`s first big hit show, but it`s also important because it`s the first musical where you really begin to sense George`s own style,” says Tommy Krasker, who has produced all three recordings in the Roxbury/Elektra-Nonesuch series.
”Anyone who`s familiar with the Gershwins` work before `Lady, Be Good!`
probably would agree that the early songs are nice but, with a few exceptions, it`s all rather polite and gentle. They never really catch fire.
”But in `Lady, Be Good,` George delves seriously, for the first time, into syncopation, blue notes and odd harmonies-a lot of the very elements that he would become famous for.”
Though earlier Gershwin songs surely have these attributes-”Swanee,”
for instance, was written as early as 1918-the jazzier sound pervades ”Lady, Be Good!” Little wonder, since Gershwin had completed the revolutionary
”Rhapsody in Blue” just months before commencing work on the show.
”Actually, I think it partly was the success of the `Rhapsody` that enabled Gershwin to incorporate those kinds of far-out sounds into his theater music,” says Krasker. ”Just as it was striking to hear such daring sounds in the concert hall, so it was equally daring to hear them in the theater.
”So it really was at about that time, 1924, that Gershwin`s music took off.”
Indeed, it`s not difficult to relate the blue-note colorings of the show`s title tune and the devilishly syncopated patterns of ”Fascinating Rhythm” to the jazz-age musical idioms of ”Rhapsody in Blue.”
Until the Secaucus discovery, however, little beyond the most famous portions of ”Lady, Be Good!” survived. Thanks to Secaucus and complementary sources, however, Krasker and colleagues now had the full scores-with original orchestrations-for six of the show`s beguiling numbers (Overture, ”A Wonderful Party,” ”End of a String,” ”We`re Here Because,” ”Linger in the Lobby” and ”Carnival Time,” each a musically glittering example of Roaring `20s songwriting).
”Interestingly, the most famous numbers, `Lady, Be Good!` and
`Fascinating Rhythm,` had no surviving (full) scores,” says Krasker, ”and I`ve always wondered if maybe that`s because MGM filmed the show (1941). Perhaps they knew they`d only use the famous numbers in the film, so maybe they just didn`t bother with the other scores,” leaving them to be rediscovered decades later in Secaucus.
”Still, other parts of `Lady, Be Good!` were missing. We frequently didn`t have the dance arrangements for the show, the specialty material, the underscoring (music that was played beneath the dialogue).”
What didn`t exist had to be improvised, with Krasker`s orchestrators elegantly imitating the arrangements that did survive.
Unfortunately, even here, in the midst of a serious effort to restore an important Gershwin musical, not all the available music is reaching listeners` ears. Because ”Lady, Be Good!” was a vaudeville-like show in almost continuous flux, some numbers were added and deleted during the course of its run.
Krasker and other executives at Roxbury/Elektra-Nonesuch, however, opted not to include numbers such as the ballad ”Evening Star,” the male trio
”Bad, Bad Men” and the choral numbers ”Weather Man,” ”Six Little Rainy Afternoon Girls,” among others.
”I get pretty upset about that,” says Edward Jablonski, author of
”Gershwin: A Biography” (Doubleday), the definitive text on the subject.
”In general, I`m glad they`re going through the Secaucus material and systematically recording the shows, but it could be done better.
”If you`re going to put together an authoritative version of these shows, you really should include the cut numbers, just as John McGlinn did (on his brilliant, two-CD restoration of Jerome Kern`s `Show Boat`).
”If those lost or forgotten songs aren`t on the new recording of the show, where will they ever turn up again?”
Krasker`s 1990 recording of ”Girl Crazy” suffers the same tragic flaw, with rediscovered, fascinating numbers such as ”Gambler of the West” and
”You Can`t Unscramble Scrambled Eggs” not included.
Krasker counters that ”certain CD players won`t take more than 75 minutes worth of music,” though a two-CD package would solve that problem. He adds that ”we`ve been talking about doing various songbook albums and then using some of the numbers that were dropped from `Lady, Be Good!` They`ll probably find their way onto a future CD.”
For the moment, though, listeners who want to hear the complete ”Lady, Be Good!”, which originally starred Fred and Adele Astaire, can`t.
Worse still is what happened to archivist-performer Michael Feinstein, who has recorded an album`s worth of unpublished Gershwin songs discovered at Secaucus. Unfortunately, the virtually finished recording is locked in dispute.
”It`s dead,” says Feinstein, ”and it`s because of Michael Strunsky, Ira`s heir. He moved in when Leonore (Ira Gershwin`s widow) died (last year)
and took over the works.
”The bottom line is that he tried to dictate artistic parameters to me in the middle of my recording project. I was about halfway through the album, and he started telling me how I should sing things, and I had to redo this and redo that.
”And then they had forced me to work with a producer I didn`t want to work with. . . . And little by little the project was taken away from me.
”Then he tried to sell me the tapes, but I refused to do that because I will not pay for something that was a gift left to me from Mrs. (Leonore)
Gershwin.
”We spent $180,000 (making the tapes), and I had recorded everything except for four voice-and-piano tracks. All the orchestral things were done, beautiful arrangements-I had a lot of vintage arrangements that had never been recorded.”
Strunsky did not return calls seeking his opinion of Feinstein`s recording.
For Gershwin lovers, then, the upshot is that a full album of never-heard Gershwin songs sits unreleased; a variety of unknown Gershwin songs to ”Girl Crazy” and ”Lady, Be Good!” sit unrecorded.
Meanwhile, the Roxbury/Elektra-Nonesuch project to restore the Gershwin shows continues apace, even while falling short of its potential.
”Michael Strunsky is very much committed to carrying out all of his aunt`s (Leonore Gerswhin`s) goals,” says Krasker. ”I honestly don`t know what the current status of the Michael Feinstein recording is.
”But, basically, Roxbury Recording hasn`t really changed its mandate at all since Mrs. Gershwin passed.
”We`re still bringing out the music.”
