The Happenings: "I Got Rhythm"

May 27, 1967 (1 week)

From the very beginning jazz musicians seemed to get George Gershwin. Classically trained, he was nevertheless open to modern music which allowed him to compose with jazz in mind. As early as the nineteen twenties figures like Duke Ellington were already fascinated by his work in a way that they weren't with Irving Berlin's compositions. "I Got Rhythm" was one of the earliest examples with it inspiring jazz standards such as Ellington's "Cotton Tail", Thelonious Monk's "Rhythm-a-Ning" and Charlie Parker's "Anthropology". In the fifties, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess began to be adapted by jazz musicians with notable complete or partial recordings by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. 

But the jazz greats weren't alone. Singers with a background in Broadway musicals can always be relied upon to have a perfectly enjoyable "I Got Rhythm" in their repertoires. They tend to sound more or less the same but what do you expect from a chorus of pros hitting all the right notes to make for one of the most glorious pop songs of the twentieth century?

Pop stars, on the other hand, have had a tougher time with Gershwin's works. A handful have been great but the majority are largely forgettable, mostly due to singers who gamely try out a "But Not for Me" or "Embraceable You" but who simply aren't up to the challenge. And then there's The Happenings who simply butcher "I Got Rhythm". The frat boy act had previously topped the RPM chart nine months' earlier with "See You in September". I can't stand it myself but at least it was daft enough to suit the cheery vocal group. In the case of "I Got Rhythm", however, they went well above their very modest pay grade.

Perhaps smart enough to know that they couldn't hope to compete with Miles or the MJQ, The Happenings can't help but try to overdo the Broadway tradition. With The Beach Boys moving further and further away from their patented doo-wop-influenced sunshine pop, they may have sensed an opening. It isn't the worst idea a fellow vocal group could've come up with but all their backing harmonies end up doing is drowning out much of the lead. (The powerful block harmonies of The Four Seasons would've served it far more effectively, just so long as Frankie Valli had shown some restraint with his falsetto; incidentally there is a faithful version by Brian Wilson from his 2012 album Reimagines Gershwin which sounds pretty much as you would imagine)

For all of their vocal prowess, there's something flat in their delivery too. "I Got Rhythm" is supposed to communicate a feeling of unrestrained joy but there's none of that in The Happenings' version. I'm sorry but it sounds like you guys could and would ask for a great deal more. But what do I know? All I ask for is a dynamic performance that works or a more conservative rendition that sticks to Broadway orthodoxy. This is an abject failure on both counts. Pitiful.

Score: 1