His visitor, perched in the back of an previous upright piano, responds with a steamy, sultry “Summertime” of his personal, and we all know precisely what he’s speaking about.
However there might be no fast repair right here. This jazz pianist is aware of that figuring out will have to come sooner than methodology, and that no person, no longer even George Gershwin, may take a seat on my own in a room and someway create a masterpiece encompassing 100 years of American track.
Then it’s on with the display.
Set fashion designer Chris Cavanagh turns a suave increased backdrop right into a personalized level for the remainder of the solid, the 4 performers who carry this musical historical past lesson to lifestyles. Proper from the primary notes of the religious “Wade in de Water,” the solid demonstrates its intensity.
In “American Rhapsody,” Richard Satterwhite performs the position of the jazz pianist, and Dwayne Stephenson is likely one of the singers who brings historical past to lifestyles.
Stevie Jackson and Davida Evette “Dee Dee” Tolbert take the ladies’s portions; Dwayne Stephenson and Josh Wilde are their males. Below the path of Carlos R.A. Jones, the singers take track this is greater than a century previous and make it sound as contemporary as the day past.
Simply as Black spirituals beget the Dixieland sounds of Stephen Foster, Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” transitions to Irving Berlin and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” sooner than diving deep into the track of the Father of the Blues, W.C. At hand.
