You know how it sucks hard when it's hot out, you're already miserable in your sweat-drenched clothes and then like a sniper some hippie puts on Sublime. Say this hippie is one of those extra annoying types that thinks Bradley Nowell was a gone-too-soon genius and loves to elaborate in detail as to why he's the end all, be all. Make that hippie's head explode by informing them that George Gershwin wrote “Doin' TIme”.
Producer Batsauce obsessed over the Gershwin aria and it's cover legacy, which if Wikipedia can be trusted bottoms out at around 120 covers. With a helluva lot of source material, Batsauce's Summertime EP is all heat, tanned to a nice bronze – no sun poisoning. I never explored the “Summertime” aria's history, but I've learned that Gershwin intended it to sound like a folk song, incorporating blues stylistics. He could have never had the foresight, so he's damn lucky, that from the blues came jazz, which latched onto the aria with everyone from John Coltrane to Stan Getz covering it and as black music progressed into soul it found an extended life through Sam Cooke and Ray Charles. Batsauce's dedication album is not the first to sample the aria, but it is only fitting that hip hop be the next genre to carry on its legacy.
The project features special
guests The Perceptionists (Mr. Lif & Akrobatik), Mass Influence,
Qwazaar, Baje One (of Junk Science), Dillon, Chop, Paten Locke, Lady
Daisey, and Wynton Kelly Stevenson.
Download Batsauce's Summertime EP here or check out his Bandcamp to stream it first.
