Whatever virtues Fazil Say might bring to Bach or Mozart, this release demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is way out of his league as a Gershwin interpreter. The pianist’s four small-jazz-combo arrangements of Porgy and Bess selections get stuck in the mud, buried under reams of swing-era clichés and bland harmonies. The same goes for his stabs at stride piano, or his fake Errol Garner-isms. Clarinetist Stanley Drucker and alto sax soloist Albert Regni musically wipe the floor with the pianist. Both the Rhapsody in Blue and I Got Rhythm Variations feature zesty, idiomatic solo playing from the orchestra members that glaringly contrasts with Say’s lurching rhythms and swooning lyrical passages. Kurt Masur’s heavy-handed time beating drains the orchestral tuttis of their energy and insouciance. Meanwhile, our pianist (anti)hero pounds out Rialto Ripples as if it were Mossolov’s The Iron Foundry, while his weighty, emphatic touch in the Second Prelude transforms this wistful opus into a droning dirge. Similarly, the cute, upbeat Impromptu in Two Keys is reincarnated as a Prelude Pathétique (or, more accurately, a pathetic prelude). One can go on and on.
The gist of Say’s problem is that he works overtime trying to bend Gershwin’s melodies to his will with mannered accents and gratuitous rubatos, built on a shaky foundation of clipped, karate-chop left-hand chords. There are dozens of pianists without a major label contract who could have pulled off this project with more stylish comprehension, pianistic flair, and, most important of all, taste. At the very least, Teldec should redesign the booklet and give Stanley Drucker top billing. His opening Rhapsody in Blue glissando would be worth the price of this excellently engineered disc.
