Summertime - but is interpretation as easy?

October 23, 2006 3:15 PM

I've always loved the song 'Summertime' from the musical Porgy & Bess. I think that part of that appeal is because it has always been open to a wide variety of musical interpretation. I've been trying my hardest for years to find other songs that match that level of artistic license but still maintain it's original beauty. Anyone have any other suggestions of similar songs that I can get my lugholes listening to?

I watched 'stuck on you' the other night and heard yet another wildly different rendition of 'summertime' which prompted me to ask the question.

posted by floanna to media & arts (32 comments total)

You are my Sunshine?
posted by A189Nut at 3:21 PM on October 23, 2006

I don't think there's anything about the song that makes it intrinsically open to a wide variety of interpretations. It's a standard, and that's how songs become standards - they get interpreted and re-interpreted.

Listen to some versions of Autumn Leaves or All the Things You Are, for starters. Or look into some more Gershwin tunes.
posted by ludwig_van at 3:32 PM on October 23, 2006

This is pretty much the definition of a 'standard,' right?

If so, check the usual suspects--your Cole Porters and Jimmy Smiths and Rodgers and Harts and Lieber and Stollers and Duke Ellingtons and Holland/Dozier/Hollands and Carole Kings and Miles Davises and Thelonious Monks and whatnot.
posted by box at 3:33 PM on October 23, 2006

Thanks for the terminology. Although I'm not that clued up on jazz, an ex gave me an appreciation of it and I know enough about the big names of that era. I'll follow up some of the suggestions given already. I might recognise them by hearing them rather than just reading the names.

I'm wondering if there any contemporary counterparts tho?
posted by floanna at 3:59 PM on October 23, 2006

See also: Great American Songbook
posted by ludwig_van at 4:12 PM on October 23, 2006

Stardust

(link goes directly to a RealAudio file, sorry)
posted by briank at 4:26 PM on October 23, 2006

You know, I've never seen the attraction people have for Stardust. I'm not saying it's a bad tune, just that I don't quite get why it's a standard.

floanna, check out Weather Report's track Birdland from their Heavy Weather album (1977).

Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man.

The majority of the work by the Beatles.

Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder.

Anything from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue

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When you say "contemporary", are you still talking about jazz? Because if so, I'm going to propose a perhaps unpopular idea. The world of jazz is not the same as it used to be. With the advances of fusion, avant-garde, free jazz and so on, jazz became a very varied beast. I think that because of this, standards are perhaps more rare. "Standards" as we know them will still happen from time to time, especially in vocal jazz (case in point, I've been hearing Elvis Costello's song Allison fairly regularly for a while now by a variety of singers), but I think it will be a rare thing.

We also have to keep in mind that a standard only becomes a standard usually after a number of years. It takes time for artists to discover the great music that is out there and then more time to record them.

----------------------------

Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry Be Happy, while not a standard, is about as well known as any standard.

George Benson and his great tune On Broadway.

Pat Metheny's Last Train Home.

Choose any version of Tom Waits' song Downtown Train.
posted by ashbury at 5:07 PM on October 23, 2006

Bob Dylan's songs are often re-interpreted in startling ways that depart from the original - for example, the many renditions of "All Along the Watchtower". Cover albums and tribute albums would be a particularly good source for finding these re-interpretations.
posted by mikeyk at 5:22 PM on October 23, 2006

I've heard many versions of "My Favorite Things", jazz-wise - is that what you mean?

Echoing what's already been said about "jazz standards" as songs everyone knows, so well that it's pleasing as art to hear another interpretation of the familiar melody.

But it's hard to do this for newer music, because it's either
1) just taken to be one band doing a "cover" of another band's hit, no matter how differently played, or
2)the familiar (or maybe even obscure) hook from one song ends up as a sample that something else is built around - so it's not really an interpretation of the original. Or is it?

"Interpretation" can be pushed pretty far...do mashups count?
posted by bartleby at 5:22 PM on October 23, 2006

I can't think of too many songs that are like "Summertime."

Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." has inspired so many covers it's crazy--look at this web page for links to a few dozen of them. Read the comments for more widely-covered songs.

Personal favorite radical covers--trying to avoid gimmicks like the Sid Vicious's cover of Sinatra's "My Way":

"Here Comes the Sun" (Beatles) covered by Nina Simone.

"Jump" (Van Halen)--Aztec Camera

"Gin'n'Juice" (Snoop) -- The Gourds. Okay, a gimmick, but a superbly done song and more entertaining than most.

"Hurt" (Nine Inch Nails) -- Johnny Carson

"When Doves Cry" (Prince) --Ani DiFranco

"Across the Universe" (Beatles) --Fiona Apple. Not so radical at all.
posted by Phred182 at 6:02 PM on October 23, 2006

p.s. Thanks for putting that in my head.

Bradley's on the microphone with Ras-MG
All the people in the dance will agree that
we're well qualified to represent the LBC

Me and Louie we're gunna run to the party and dance till the rhythm it gets harder
posted by Phred182 at 6:08 PM on October 23, 2006

Ditto Briank.

I just checked my collection of ye olde MP3s and found 27 versions of Stardust (occasionally called 'Star Dust') by folks ranging from Dave Brubeck to Doris Day to Frank Sinatra to Willie Nelson. Heck, that isn't even counting the different versions that I have on CD that I haven't yet ripped to MP3, including several by Hoagy Carmichael himself (the feller who wrote the tune). My personal favorite is by Oscar Pettiford, a version that is mostly upright bass.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:13 PM on October 23, 2006

Hey Phred, I think you mean Johnny Cash, but I kind of hope that you really mean Johnny Carson, cause that would be REALLY cool!
posted by dirtdirt at 6:14 PM on October 23, 2006

Hey, if you're going to mention Gin n Juice, you can't ignore the Phish cover.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 6:20 PM on October 23, 2006

[annoyed grunt]
posted by Phred182 at 6:29 PM on October 23, 2006

Kingjoeschmoe--Gourds cover first became popular while mislabeled as a Phish cover. I looked everywhere, but it's not Phish. Turns out it was the Gourds all along.

Or Johnny Carson.

But I agree, it's a classic.

Phish does a great job on everything they cover, but they seem to get a kick out of being faithful to the original.
posted by Phred182 at 6:36 PM on October 23, 2006

Do you have iTunes? I really enjoy typing a name of a standard into the iTunes Store search engine and then listening to snippets from all the variations that come up. (Alas, this usually ends in me spending a ton of money buying 13 different versions of "Tea for Two" or whatever, but that's the risk.)

Of course, you have to know what to type in. So here are some suggestions. If you haven't heard of these, try them anyway. When they play, you may find you know more of them than you think you do:

Isn't it Romantic, Speak Low When You Speak Love, Willow Weep for Me, Fascinating Rhythm, Night and Day, It Might As Well be Spring, Someone To Watch Over Me, It's De Lovely, 'S Wonderful, Dearly Beloved, My Romance, You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Lovely to Look At, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered, Begin the Beguine, Blue Moon, With a Song in My Heart, Blue Skies, September Song, Old Man River, Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine, Just One Of Those Things, Let's Fall in Love, Fit as a Fiddle, I Could Write a Book, The Man I Love, In the Still of the Night, Moon Glow, Embraceable You, Brazil, I'll Never be the Same, Pennies from Heaven, Where or When, Lullaby of Broadway, Mountain Greenery, Thanks for the Memory, There's a Small Hotel, Sing for Your Supper, I'm Old Fashioned

As you can see, I could go on and on. If you exhaust all these and want more suggestions, my email is in my profile.
posted by grumblebee at 6:36 PM on October 23, 2006

Seconding "Night and Day."
posted by brain cloud at 6:55 PM on October 23, 2006

"Stormy Weather" is covered by everybody and is the closest I can think of to "Summertime." Other jazz standards of the time: "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "My Funny Valentine," "Someone to Watch Over Me."
posted by booksandlibretti at 7:01 PM on October 23, 2006

Nobody's mentioned this yet, so I suspect I'm misunderstanding your question.

But every version I've heard of Leonard Cohen's Halleluia pretty well maintains its original beauty.
posted by booth at 7:21 PM on October 23, 2006

Oooh, ooh, ooh, I have the perfect answer for this one:

Feeling Good

I get odd cravings for this song.
posted by lannanh at 8:24 PM on October 23, 2006

So many great tunes mentioned already ... how about "Over the Rainbow"?
posted by sgass at 8:26 PM on October 23, 2006

Jimi Hendrix' "Little Wing" has had some interesting treatments, although they never wander all that far from the original.

"Lullaby of the Leaves" has been everything from a torch song to a surf song. In fact, there are surf renditions of a lot of standards (Caravan and Perfidia come to mind).

"Nature Boy" has been reinterpreted who-knows-how many times, most recently, and multiply, in the movie Moulin Rouge. I'm especially partial to Fila Brazillia's rendition, though Ella Fitzgerald's is the benchmark.

"Love Theme from Spartacus" is a personal favorite. I've got 9 versions in my collection.

I'm always interested in quirky covers myself.
posted by adamrice at 8:51 PM on October 23, 2006

Nice Hoagy's Stardust version, Briank
posted by growabrain at 9:00 PM on October 23, 2006

This Slate article argues that Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" fits the bill.
posted by vytae at 7:27 AM on October 24, 2006

"It's Not Easy Being Green."
Originally sung by Kermit the Frog.
Check out Van Morrison's cover.
Seriously.
posted by bricoleur at 7:33 AM on October 24, 2006

Moon River, Especially the first link in that post.
posted by piratebowling at 7:46 AM on October 24, 2006

The canonical source chord progression for many, many bebop compositions and improvisations is Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm".
posted by nicwolff at 6:35 PM on October 24, 2006

Seconding "Over the Rainbow"... I don't know why (maybe all those years of seeing "The Wizard of Oz" on TV?) but my ears just perk right up when I hear anyone do it.

As for Cohen's Halleluiah, a bunch of versions are linked to here .
posted by lhauser at 9:27 PM on October 24, 2006

Amazing Grace.
posted by jessicapierce at 5:17 AM on October 26, 2006

adamrice, if you like quirky, and you like Nature Boy, and you like covers, find yourself Tony Randall's cover.

It is next to insane.
posted by Sallyfur at 12:36 PM on October 26, 2006

Just remembered, a bit late, "Paint if Black." The french language version, "Marie Cholere" (sp?) is a really interesting interpretation.

Also, Nina Gordon covered "Straight Outta Compton," almost made it sound sweet.
posted by Phred182 at 5:10 PM on October 26, 2006