Rhapsody in Blue - straight or swinging 8ths?

[henrikbe]

Hi,

been listening to a few recordings on youtube of Rhapsody in Blue, and it puzzles me that they all seem to play the 8ths straight. Is this really the most common way to play it? I immedately assumed they should be played swinging (i.e. 2+1), but that was before listening to any recordings, just by playing from the sheet music.

[cuberdrift]

Have you listened to the original recording?

I guess it's worth a listen as well. This is a "popular music" piece, and the orchestrated version came later. I think it's one of the early attempts at merging popular music with strict concert music, so in this original "unadulterated" recording we hear a freer rendition of it by the composer himself. The genre by itself is improvisational in nature, so I think it's fine to swing it.

The recording itself doesn't sound "heavy swing", rather it sounds like one of those "middleground swing" pieces, where it's not entirely straight, not entirely swung either. Think ragtime, I guess. For instance, Richard Zimmerman's recording of Joplin's "Swipesy's Cakewalk" hovers in between straight 8ths and swing:

 It's very tricky to apply this style if one is not a jazz player, but maybe after listening intently to recordings of Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, the piano rolls of Scott Joplin rags, etc. one begins to understand this elusive "Afro" feel.

I think the real genius of Gershwin lay in popular music, how he constructed melodies for jazz musicians to develop; I understand he made fine classical works, but what I am truly stunned by are when his songs are embellished by the jazz virtuosi.