Show #166: Six Summer Songs

<!-- missing image http://blogs.kcrw.com/rhythmplanet/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/blog-spacer.jpg -->This week we enjoy a half-dozen summer songs. We mix them up of course. Don’t worry, I won’t play Eddie Cochran or any other over-worked cut.

We begin with Benin’s superstar, Angelique Kidjo, with her version of “Summertime.” By the way, she’s singing in Fon and Yoruba, two of Benin’s languages. Also by the way, Benin is next door to Nigeria. We bless Gershwin again with Miles Davis and Gil Evans‘ classic version of the song.

After that we head for classical territory and check out a beautiful song by Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, the Pastorale d’Éte from 1920. I love the orchestrations. You’ll hear French horns, oboes, flutes, strings, and other instruments in a gorgeous orchestral salad.

We switch gears and listen next to a Quincy Jones classic from 1973, “Summer in the City.”

Then, back in the classical mode, we hear Samuel Barber‘s Knoxville Summer of 1915 with the wonderful soprano Dawn Upshaw and David Zinman conducting. Upshaw also worked with Zinman on her chart-topping version of Polish composer Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony #3, The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.

Finally, we’re back in jazz mode with a 1963 recording by American jazz expat Sahib Shihab with “Lillemor” from his album Summer Dawn.

I wanted to mix things up a bit on this playlist, and I hope you like what you hear.

Rhythm Planet Playlist for 7/8/16:

1. Angelique Kidjo / “Summertime” / Jazz A Saint Germain / Virgin

2. Miles Davis / “Summertime” / Porgy and Bess / Columbia/Legacy

3. Charles Dutoit (conductor) and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / “Pastorale d’Ete” / Arthur Honegger (various) / Erato

4. Quincy Jones / “Summer in the City” / Blaxploitation Vol. 1 / Global Television

5. Dawn Upshaw (soprano) / “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” / Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Samuel Barber, composer) / Nonesuch

6. Sahib Shihab / “Lillemor” / Summer Dawn/ Chess Records/Rearward