[Dixielandjazz] Show Boat Jazz Transcription this week on Riverwalk Jazz

[Donald Mopsick]

This week is the rerun of the Show Boat jazz transcription. This means
that the music is the Kern-Hammerstein score arranged instrumentally
for the Jim Cullum Jazz Band with a narration script derived from the
original novel by Edna Ferber. Most of the arrangements are by John
Sheridan, still with the band. The narrator was the great William
Warfield who sang Old Man River in the 1951 MGM movie.

Warfield was also the narrator for the JCJB live concert presentation
of Porgy and Bess, which was also turned into a 2-part radio series
for RWJ. After the success of the Porgy and Bess project (it was
released on Sony records but never reissued), Show Boat was conceived
as a sequel. We wound up doing only one live concert presentation of
Sho Boat on the road with Warfield.

Wanna see a cool photo of William Warfield by the great
photographer/author/jazz clarinetist William Carter? Go here:
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/383723_10150440019015897_190998800896_8422455_1071789410_n.jpg

Warfield, who is no longer with us, had a low register that would
shake the building and parts of your anatomy. He was a lot of fun to
be around, always had a plethora of jokes and one-liners, not all of
them clean. In the show, which you can stream now at
http://riverwalkjazz.org, he talks about his experience recording "Ol'
Man River" for the MGM movie. After they set everything up, the booth
said, "Go ahead and try one." After they ran it through, the producer
told them that they had in fact gotten it on that take, and that was
the one you hear in the movie.

Warfield collaborated with us on a few other projects, most notably
another RWJ radio hour on the Harlem Renaissance and a memorable live
performance of Duke Ellington's "In the Beginning, God" at Grace
Cathedral in San Francisco. Warfield was not exactly a swinging jazz
singer, his field was opera and musical theater, but he was a great
artist nonetheless and I am richer for having known him.

mopo
-- 
http://about.me/donmopsick