Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
#1Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Posted: 11/18/12 at 1:35am
Just uploaded 15 songs from the 1959 film, for which I replaced the audio with tracks from the soundtrack CD. Also restored the title sequence!
Mark M.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ajv_IczlY
Updated On: 4/27/14 at 01:35 AM
#2Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Posted: 11/18/12 at 3:22pm
Thank you for sharing this.
I have always suspected that the Columbia records "soundtrack" album was not taken from the actual film soundtrack, since the performances did not seem to match those in the actual film. I thought that the album was complete studio redo. Sammy Davis Jr.'s contract with Decca prevented his participation in the album. How did you find it comparing the actual film track to the recording?
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
#3Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Posted: 11/18/12 at 6:36pm
The music on the soundtrack recording is indeed the music heard on the soundtrack of the film. Soundtrack albums are done front to back, as it were. The music is pre-recorded before filming and mixed to the filmed elements after major photography has been completed. Then they remix and refrequence the music for a commercial album release. Soundtrack music always had to be refrequenced and "brought down" for "wax" before the digital age.
The orchestral, choral and most of the vocal tracks heard in the film are the same as those heard on the Columbia album, the exceptions being, of course, the Cab Calloway vocals mixed into the soundtrack orchestral tracks, and an alternate vocal track for "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin", which Poitier found too smooth initially and asked Robert McFerrin to re-record for the actual filmed sequence. The middle section of the same number was re-recorded for the finished film, as well. The reason the video part of this middle sequence is missing is because these videos are taken from an edited TV print of the film.
And the reconstructed main title sequence (with music taken from the Overture instead of the Main Title music) is nice, but missing two of the film's credited orchestrators.
Well-well-well-what-do-you-think-of-that-I-have-nothing-here-to-pay-my-train-fare-with-only-large-bills-fives-and-sevens....
Updated On: 11/18/12 at 06:36 PM
#4Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Posted: 11/19/12 at 2:26pm
Thanks Bill or the informative post. I knew that often record producers would opt for different (sometimes longer) takes which explains why sometime the performances do not match exactly.
I remember seeing the film on TV several times in the early 1970s, but all the TV prints I saw were edited ("My Man's Gone Now" was never included) and then after about 1974 the film vanished from Tv - later I read that the Gershwin estate refused to extend the music rights.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
#5Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Posted: 11/20/12 at 12:02am
Yes, all the current bootleg copies of the film, both wide-screen and full-frame, reflect the 1967 ABC-TV edit. (They seemed to have had no trouble showing the complete GUYS AND DOLLS that year!)
The cuts include snippets of "Gone, Gone, Gone", the spoken part of Porgy's prayer over Robbins, the entire last half of the wake scene, including "My Man's Gone Now" and "The Train Is At The Station", the afore-mentioned middle section of "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'" (you can see and hear the washer-women humming along in the background during the second part of the number), Maria's approximation of "Struttin' Style", the entire Lawyer Frazier divorce scene, and the buzzard landing ominously over Porgy's doorway as everyone leaves for the picnic. Once we get to Kittiwah, the rest of the film is pretty complete. When I finally saw Ken Kramer's general release CinemaScope/stereo print a few years ago, I was in heaven!
Well-well-well-what-do-you-think-of-that-I-have-nothing-here-to-pay-my-train-fare-with-only-large-bills-fives-and-sevens....
Updated On: 11/20/12 at 12:02 AM
#6Porgy and Bess 1959 in Stereo!
Posted: 4/27/14 at 7:29am
"And the reconstructed main title sequence (with music taken from the Overture instead of the Main Title music) is nice, but missing two of the film's credited orchestrators."
I only missed one credit in the title sequence, since it was cut off in the transfer and I could not find it on IMDB. It was not an orchestrator.
Unfortunately, the Main Title was not on the LP, so I had to use the Overture.
