Summertime

"Summertime" is a composition by George Gershwin with lyrics by DuBose Heyward, written as the opening aria for the 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin first read Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy in 1926 and proposed a collaboration, but serious work did not begin until December 1933, after Gershwin, his brother Ira, and Heyward researched African American life in the South Carolina Lowcountry, including an extended stay on Folly Beach near Charleston. The composition is styled as a slow, evocative lullaby in a minor key, with a haunting melody built largely on the pentatonic scale that gives it a folk-spiritual quality. The harmonic language draws on blues progressions, and the slow tempo suggests a gentle, cradle-rocking rhythm. Within the opera, the song appears multiple times: first as Clara's lullaby in Act I, then reprised by Clara in Act II and by Bess in Act III. Gershwin aimed to blend European operatic form with jazz, blues, and spirituals in what he called an "American folk opera," and "Summertime" represents perhaps the most successful realization of that ambition. The song transcended its operatic origins to become one of the most recorded compositions in history, with estimates of over 33,000 versions cataloged across virtually every musical genre. Its universal appeal as an improvisation vehicle has made it a foundational piece in the jazz standard repertoire.