one hundred years of
Rhapsody in Blue
A unique vinyl release of Gershwins's 'Rhapsody in Blue', presenting a remaster of the original recording (1924), together with our own arrangement (2024), inspired by the raw energy of the original. 100 years apart...
1924
The original recording of Gershwin's (1898-1937) 'Rhapsody in Blue' was made on 10th June 1924 with George at the piano, accompanied by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra.
2024
Our own arrangement, inspired by the original, was recorded to celebrate the centenary of this iconic and enduring classic piece. It's arranged for small jazz combo and 4 cello parts.
1924: the original recording of Gershwin's (1898-1937) 'Rhapsody in Blue' was made on 10th June 1924 with George himself playing piano, accompanied by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Whiteman had commissioned Gershwin to write a new piece for his concert "An Experiment in Modern Music" , which took place at the Aeolian Hall, New York, on 12th February earlier that year - but no recording of the premier of this 'piece in progress' was made. The 1924 recording remains then, the earliest record of the composer's original intentions for the musical interpretation of this piece.
2024: our new recording has taken 40 years to emerge from when I first started to play the piece. Familiar with the romantic, almost 'slushy' sophistication of the majority of recorded interpretations of the piece, my mind was blown upon first hearing Gershwin's original recording on a wind-up gramophone. After confirming that the gramophone's mechanics were truly playing it at the right speed, I was astounded by how fast Gershwin played it - how friverously, playfully and energetically the themes tripped off his finger-tips - anything but 'romantic' in feel...
Many personal performances, recordings and small band arrangements later, we offer this Two Lads' interpretation of the piece as a centenary contribution to the ever-growing compendium of recordings that can already be counted in the 'tens of thousands'! We hope it brings a new perspective for those not familiar with Gershwin's original interpretation, and for those who are, we hope our arrangement brings something fresh to your ears - particularly the addition of the Cello, that was never part of Grofé's orignal arrangement!
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Here's to the next 100 years!
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Mike Roberts - from the sleeve notes - 2024
More information:
Pressed at 45rpm: This recording has been released in '12 inch single' format - that is, full size record but playing back at a higher speed than a long-playing album. Producers in the 70's and 80's reverted to this format to create longer versions of single songs and allow for a greater definition of sound, particularly with bass frequencies. For us, the format both reflects the speedier aesthetic of the original 78rpm release, and the higher quality of sound possible by providing more vinyl 'real estate' upon which to print the soundwave grooves.
Our Arrangement (side A): Our 2024 recording is based on an arrangement Mike made for a small jazz ensemble back in 2004. The slight drawback of this arrangement is the lack of strings. Strings elevate Gershwin's composition, from being purely a 'jazz band' piece, to being truly orchestral in scope. The jazz ensemble arrangement incorporated piano (of course), percussion, brass and woodwind, leaving strings as the only omission. Mike and Nick's collaboration as Two Lads and a Laptop opened the door to completing the arrangement with the inclusion of strings - albeit all supplied by Cello. We resisted the possibility of creating a entirely new arrangement just for Cello and Piano, on the basis that the woodwind and brass seem pretty essential to the DNA of this piece - not least the opening glissando of the clarinet that represents a seismic moment in music history.
Performance: With the woodwind and brass elements included in the arrangement, our performance needs to include some guest musicians. For this recording, the guest musicians are:
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​Clarinet / Sax - Tom Challenger
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Trumpet - Gavin Broom
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Double Bass - Jo Wills
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Drums - Guy Wood
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Original Recording (side B): Gershwin's original recording, performed with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on 10th June 1924, was substantially cut to fit within the maximum 9 minutes of a 78rpm record (4.5 minutes per side). Some people have suggested that the speed of this performance was also impacted by the limited record time of the 78 format. However, given Gershwin was happy enough to cut 1/3rd of the full material, and given the general pace of the early 1920's jazz scene, I personally believe that the speed reflects Gershwin's intentions for performance generally. It is this aspect of the original recording that I found most revealing and still find compelling.
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Remastering: In remastering the original recording - captured from an original release purchased on Ebay - we applied 4 main manipulations:
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Noise reduction - both physical (pickup cartridge v. needle) and digital (filtering).
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Equalisation - rebalancing the frequency spectrum that was biased by the original acoustic recording device
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Spacialisation - providing some stereo 'depth' to the original mono recording
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Reverberation - adding a 'concert hall' reverberation to 'liven' up the resonance
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The result is still very clearly an historic recording of 1920's technological origin, but subtly improved to give more clarity to the composer's performance.
