André Previn: Stormy Weather
Track
Stormy Weather
Artist
André Previn (piano)
CD
André Previn Plays Harold Arlen (Original Jazz Classics 1840)
Recorded: Los Angeles, May 4-5, 1960
Rating: 91/100 (learn more)
Sometimes to see something clearly, you have to momentarily look away. We tested this once while practicing our Zen archery, and frankly the results were not altogether satisfactory. Our neighbor still bears a grudge about his plate-glass window. André Previn's "Stormy Weather," though, suggests the principle may be true. Moonlighting from his day job as an MGM staff composer, Previn doesn't so much reinterpret the song as recompose it à la Gershwin's Prelude No. 2 (1926), with echoes of Negro spirituals. Far from demeaning "Stormy Weather," this momentary distraction refreshes our insight into Harold Arlen's venerable song. A blindfolded bull's-eye.
Reviewer: Alan Kurtz
Tags: solo piano · stormy weather
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