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:: Rhapsody In Blue ::

:: I Got Rhythm ::

:: Porgy And Bess Introduction And Opening Scene 1/Summertime ::

:: My Man's Gone Now ::

:: It Ain't Necessarily So ::

:: Clara, Clara ::

:: Crown's Killing ::

This album certainly looks innocuous enough; you almost might never expect there to be anything interesting about it at all just by looking at the cover, unless you thought the afroed man on the cover was Dr. Who. Fortunately I had been seriously grooving on Gershon Kingsley's double CD collection God Is A Moog recently, so I knew better than to pass this up.

Side A is mostly eaten up by the famous-to-even-people-who-don't-know-its-name-but-have-seen-a-United-Airlines-Commercial-in-the-last-fifteen-years classical piece, Rhapsody In Blue. The remaining pittance is an extremely short and percussive take on another Gershwin biggie, I Got Rhythm. On these two tracks, Kingsley is accompanied by Leonid Hambro, a Juilliard-trained pianist and avowed athiest who just died last year.

Side B is the real prize. Selections from Porgy & Bess are wrung through Kingsley's wacky Moog mill, with funky ring modulations, spaced-out wave oscillations and analog flutters that give these numbers a decidely non-showtune flavor. Sounds more like the music to an interpretive dance routine on Buck Rogers. I have to admit being pretty unfamiliar with the musical's songs, but I sure like the results here.


Tony

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