Word: levant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
July record-buyers will be up to their ears in Gershwin (see above). Some of it: ¶Rhapsody in Blue, two versions: Pianist Oscar Levant with the Philadelphia Orchestra (Eugene Ormandy conducting...
...major networks agreed to stick in Gershwin tunes on almost every musical show that comes along. Among others, Todd Duncan (the original "Porgy") and every songstress from Lily Pons to Dinah Shore will give out with Gershwin in July. The climax will be a big outdoor concert, starring Oscar Levant, at Manhattan's Lewisohn Stadium on July 12. That will be exactly eight years and a day after Gershwin's death-a rather odd-figure anniversary until one considers that it coincides vith the first-run Broadway showing of Rhapsody in Blue, a screen biography v hich Warner...
...Levant, good friend and semi-official interpreter of Gershwin, turns out a workmanlike Concerto in F with the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York (Andre Kostelanetz conducting; Columbia, 6 sides...
...Georgie, such black ink," he says, examining in uncomprehending wonder George's first musical manuscript.) Herbert Rudley and Albert Basserman underplay with moving simplicity the difficult roles of a retiring, satellite brother and a music teacher distrustful of Mammon's claims on his favorite pupil. Oscar Levant, as himself, needs no acting skill to project his practiced cockiness, but respect for his late friend in real life has given his comic relief performance an unexpected depth...
...behind its hero's restless introspection, its music is ample compensation. With no story at all, this two-hour concert of Gershwin music would be well worth the price of admission. The shimmering ragtime of many a half-forgotten early hit, beaten out by an invisible Oscar Levant; the brazen love call of the Winter Garden smash Swanee, groaned in all its original agony by blackfaced Al Jolson; Anne Brown's superb soprano raised again in the music of Porgy and Bess; and The Man I Love given an added pinch of pepper by Hazel Scott...