Track Listing

1. Buzzard Song
2. Bess, You Is My Woman Now
3. Gone
4. Gone, Gone, Gone
5. Summertime
6. Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess?
7. Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)
8. Fisherman, Strawberry and Devil Crab
9. My Man's Gone Now
10. It Ain't Necessarily So
11. Here Come de Honey Man
12. I Loves You, Porgy
13. There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York
14. I Loves You, Porgy [Take 1, Second Version][*]
15. Gone [Take 4][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11003 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1997-03-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording remastered, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.com
Take George Gershwin's Porgy & Bess, add Miles Davis and arranger Gil Evans, and what do you get? A classic jazz album that--despite the fact that the material has been rendered almost overly familiar due to countless interpretations--still sounds remarkably fresh four decades after its initial release. Miles' soft yet piercing trumpet style is perfectly suited to Gershwin's melancholy melodies, Evans' musical direction of his 18-piece orchestra is impeccable, and their version of "Summertime" may well be the finest ever waxed. Davis and Evans teamed up for several recordings after this one (including the landmark Sketches of Spain), but Porgy & Bess still stands as one of their most successful collaborations. --Dan Epstein

Customer Reviews

No more superlatives can be found on ANY review!
Look closely to see what is being written about Miles Davis' Porgy & Bess, and see how sometimes words fail us all. You will find words like: "Must-have", "best" superb" and the like. But they simply cannot do justice to this fabulous piece of music.

This may be the best collaboration of Davis and Gil Evans. When you add the gifts that they have shown on their other work to a combination with the Brothers Gershwin, you understandibly come up with something splendid, notwithstanding the fact that Gershwin and Davis could not have been different sociologically as they could have been.

The melodies here are comfortably familiar to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of American music, because they have been done so often by such a diverse group of performers. However, the minimalist playing of Miles Davis, combined with the musical tapestry created by Evans makes this wonderful music new again.

Hearing the trumpet of Miles Davis in the familiar strains of "Summertime" would make both Louis Armstrong and even Gabriel put down their horns and say "wow".

No music collection can be considered complete without this epic.

Chilling.
I write this review as a confessed jazz amateur.

That said, this is some of the most beautiful music I am aware of .

Miles Davis employs a sensativity and subtlty that defy desription.

I would not be the first of his fans to be awed by his almost pervasive minimalism, but I am constantly chilled (in a most positive way) by the startling sound that appears from the black silence he paints.

Samuel Beckett once wrote that "...every word is a stain on silence and nothingness..." certainly Davis has taken this thought to heart.

Like a negative contour sketch that highlights the empty space, Davis dances around the silence, telling only enough of a musical story to leave you begging for more.

Whether or not "Porgy and Bess," sounds as Gershwin intended is largely irrelavent, because it sounds very much as Davis intended, and that makes this a fabulous recording.

A must have for any jazz fan
I admit, I do not hold George Gershwin in high regard, but this album is a provocative and innovative example of a musical collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans that provided a sound so different it shook the jazz world. After hearing legendary Miles on his trumpet in the song "Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab", I had to turn off my stereo because I could not fathom hearing anything else more beautiful and rich sounding after that.

I've been listening to jazz for quite some time but eveytime I think I've heard every composition or piece by Miles, I get surprised again. This CD was no exception.