George
Gershwins opera Porgy and Bess met with only middling success
when it debuted in 1935, but stagings in the 1940s and 1950s ensured
its place in musical history. With Hollywood poised to make a motion
picture of the opera in the late 1950s, a number of musicians recorded
jazz interpretations of the score, ranging from an ambitious Bethlehem
record label project to a small-group version by guitarist Mundell Lowe.
Well hear from those artists as well as Miles Davis and Gil Evans,
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Hank Jones, and Bill Potts on this
edition of Night Lights; Porgy and Bess: the 1950s Jazz Revival
airs Saturday, Oct. 15 at 11:05 p.m. on WFIU.