Gibbons plays Gershwin: Kickin' The Clouds Away & Love Walked In

I have listened to this a thousand times, and never get tired of it! Gibbons is considered the master of Gershwin's piano pieces, mainly because he meticulously restores the original piano score from all the myriad arrangements of Gershwin's tunes. Kicking the Clouds Away swings in a way that is both primitive and extremely elegant, and Gibbons plays it with the kind of gusto that George must have exhibited. He'd sit there at parties and just play, and play, and play. Much of it was improvised, so we will never know what it sounded like, but this captures the lighting-bug under glass for a few minutes, giving us a hint of what it must have been like to sit around the piano at those parties.

This piece is like a pocket version of Rhapsody in Blue, encapsulating so much of his edgy, urban, heady elegance with that incredible underlying urgency and drive. Gershwin said that Rhapsody in Blue was conceived while he was on a train and mesmerized by the steady chug of the engine, the hypnotic click of the wheels on the rails. You and I would hear that, and probably fall asleep, while he sat there conceiving a work of pure genius. And here it is all condensed down into a few minutes, while losing nothing of the fizzy joy of the original.

The second tune is one of my all-time favorites, Love Walked In, an exquisite arrangement which brings to mind the impressionist chords of Debussy. The lyrics are perfectly married to the tune: simple, achingly heartfelt, a universe of emotion which fits inside a thimble. Simple like Einsteins's formula, e=mc2. 

Nothing seemed to matter any more, 

Didn't care what I was headed for. 

Time was standing still, 

No one counted till 

There came a knocking at the door. 

Love walked right in and drove the shadows away; 

Love walked right in and brought my sunniest day; 

One magic moment, and my heart seemed to know 

That love said "Hello!", 

Though not a word was spoken. 

One look and I forgot the gloom of the past; 

One look and I had found my future at last. 

One look and I had found a world completely new, 

When love walked in. . .with you.

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