In class, we discussed expressive timing in Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side”, as analyzed by Nancy Murphy. The musical practice was portrayed through his constant, yet inconsistent, change in metric structure and subdivisions. Depending on the performance, he would change the meter to either better serve the purpose of the performance, or to emphasize a certain lyric and message, or simply because it was what he was feeling. During his performance on live television, he kept a consistent 3/4 time signature and a triple meter subdivision, as if to shorten the length of the song to better suit the limited time he had on air. In some live performances, he would stretch certain phrases and verses into 4/4 time to allow the audience to register more intently what he was talking about. Out of all 19 recorded live performances of this song, not one is the same as the other.
A genre that commonly uses expressive timing is jazz, and for this post I decided to use “Summertime”, which was originally written for the opera Porgy and Bess. This opera was written by composer George Gershwin, with a libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. It tells the story of Porgy, a crippled beggar in Charleston attempting to rescue Bess from her abusive lover, Crown, and her drug dealer, Sportin’ Life. After its film adaptation in 1959, as well as the release in the same year of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s final duo album featuring much of the music from that opera, “Summertime” exploded in popularity.
In the first example, you hear the operatic version from the 1959 film (colourized). It has some swing written into the music. However, unlike in jazz, the performer remained true to the note rhythms and values, never deviating from what was written.
The second example is the performance by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, who vary in their performance of the piece between themselves as much as between the opera version. Fitzgerald resembles the slow rising of the sun, its light slowly washing over the listener, bathing them in its warmth. It flows beautifully in a wide panning, picturesque scene of shimmering trees, peaceful animals waking in the morning dew, and flowers swaying in the breeze. Her notes are frequently elongated, not allowing the pacing of the instruments to dictate the vocal cut-off. Her singing is the master of this piece, not the music itself, and she’ll gently portray the summer morning as the narrative wills. Then enters Louis Armstrong. Much of his singing is also elongated, however, several parts have late arrivals, quicker entries, and a playful, delicate flurry. His singing is the liveliness that comes with summer: the chasing of passions and smaller animals, the light sprinkle on the face from the river, leaves and petals dancing in a jovial, brief gust of wind. Like Fitzgerald’s, his singing is not defined by what should be, but is expressive in the randomness and power of the nature of summer’s season.