1995

Larry Adler with Issy Van Randwyck

Musical Director- Kelvin Thomson

George Golla (Guitar) Craig Scott (bass)

David Jones (drums)

Festival Theatre, Adelaide.

Murray Bramwell

George Gershwin is quintessentially the American artist of the twentieth century. His music distilled the mood  of his time,

first  mainstreaming the bluenotes and syncopations of jazz into Tin Pan Alley then transmuting them into such Modernist classics as Rhapsody in Blue and his opera, Porgy and Bess. Gershwin’s music, like the Marx Brothers, Scott Fitzgerald or Dorothy Parker in the New Yorker, epitomises American cosmopolitanism-  accessible, popular and irresistibly stylish. And, when he died, tragically of a brain tumour, George Gershwin hadn’t lived as long as  John Lennon.

Larry Adler, on the other hand, has flourished splendidly into his ninth decade and currently he’s on a mission for George. It started with the compilation CD, The Glory of Gershwin, a gathering of performers which turned into a Who’s Humungous in popular music. Sting, with whom Adler had recently collaborated on his Summoner’s Tales album, put his hat in the ring- and Elton John, Lisa Stansfield,  Cher, Jon Bon Jovi, Courtney Pine and others followed.  George Martin produced and the record sold a heap. Mr Adler even won distinction in the Guinness Book of Records for the being the most senior citizen to record a number one album.

On tour with singer Issy Van Randwyck and a quartet led by Kelvin Thomson, Larry Adler not only confirms the glory of Gershwin but he gathers more  than a little for himself. After a set from pianist Bernard Walz, the band takes the stage in darkness.  First we hear the inimitable Hohner mouth organ,  all fluency and shading. Then, Larry Adler, in fashionable black,  enters from the wings, sits down at the piano, plays the signature chords with his left hand while in his right- from what a gangster once referred to as Adler’s tin sandwich- Gershwin’s sinuous melody is unleashed, and instantly recognisable. It’s Summertime and the living is easy.

Larry Adler’s celebration of Gershwin is a marvellous blend of music and memoir. His comments, intros and asides are as fascinating as they are droll. After all, he was there at the time. Friend of George and Ira, not to mention – although he makes sure  he does- Cole Porter,  Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers, Frank Loesser, and more.

After Bernard Walz sets a more scholarly note with his opening selection- transcriptions of That Certain Feeling and Clap Your Hands, followed by a spirited rendering of Three Preludes- singer Issy Van Randwyck joins the band with The Man I Love, S’Wonderful and They Can’t Take That Away From Me.  In good voice, if somewhat uncertain in her microphone technique, Miss Van Randwyck could probably ditch the pink boa and other flapperings, which not only constrict her movement but lend a kitsch aspect to the event. The freshness of the Glory of Gershwin recording project is in the directness of the readings, unencumbered by nostalgia or pastiche. Now on stage, everyone can take their cue from Larry. This is not a show which needs  much colour and movement.

While Gershwin songs like I’ve Got a Crush on You represent the best of the seamless pop of their day it is the Porgy and Bess material which shines –

My Man’s Gone Now, It Ain’t Necessarily So, and, new for the tour, Adler’s superb exploration of Bess, You is My Woman Now.  Seated in a chair, urbanely coaxing amazing sounds from an instrument no-one took seriously until he took it to the concerts halls of Europe, Larry Adler has still got plenty of of somethin’.

The second half strains with Issy Van Randwyck’s opening set- Vodka, American Folk Song and Treat Me Rough- and Adler’s return provides welcome focus. Somebody Loves Me works well, as does Van Randwyck’s track from the album, I’ll Build  a Stairway to Paradise. But it is Adler’s tranquil recollections of Gershwin and the almost elegaic recital of Rhapsody in Blue- with Bernard Walz at the piano-  that is the highlight. To think that this man performed with George Gershwin himself more than half a century previously. It is like shaking hands with the man who shook hands with Napoleon.

“Rhapsody in blue notes” The Australian, May 18, 1995, p.13.