A trio of musical adventurers and the timeless hits of George Gershwin combine to create Porgy and Bess Revisited, a rich mix of free improvisation, melodic fantasy and formal composition. This alluring album, set for release on Orchid Classics, captures the playfulness and passion, the coruscating wit and haunting sadness of Gershwin’s ‘American folk opera’, as Porgy and Bess was billed for its first outing on Broadway in 1935-36.

Porgy and Bess Revisited unites three contrasting artistic personalities, the debonair double-bassist Knut Erik Sundquist, the phlegmatic vibraphone virtuoso and composer Pascal Schumacher and the flamboyant violinist Nicolas Dautricourt. Like Gershwin, they vault the boundary walls of convention to produce music suffused with the rhythms and life of jazz, the elegance of classical form, the irresistibility of popular song and the pathos of folk art.

Their multi-layered reflections on Porgy and Bess, projected across ten tracks, offer a contemporary vision of Gershwin’s work that’s both experimental and deeply respectful of the original. As Nicolas Dautricourt observes, ‘it has taken courage and humility to put yet another spin on this score and give it a new narrative. In Gershwin’s own words, “life is a lot like jazz… it is best when you improvise”.’