George Gershwin composed “Summertime” in 1934 for the opera Porgy and Bess, which opened in 1935; the lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, author of the novel Porgy on which the opera is based. Gershwin began work on it in December 1933, trying to write his own spiritual in the style of the African American folk music of the period, and had set Heyward’s poem to music by February 1934. That summer he worked on the opera in Charleston, South Carolina, drawing inspiration from the Gullah community of James Island, which he felt had preserved African musical traditions. Heyward took the idea for his lyric from “All My Trials,” a Southern folk spiritual and lullaby of which he had Clara sing a snippet in his play Porgy.
In the opera the song opens act 1, sung by Clara as a lullaby to her baby. The lyric describes easy living in summer, with fish jumping and the cotton high, a baby told to stop crying because a day will come when it rises singing and spreads its wings, and a mother and father standing by until then. It returns soon after as counterpoint to the craps game scene, and in act 2 in a reprise by Clara. In act 3 Bess sings it to Clara’s baby, orphaned after both parents die in the storm. Stephen Sondheim called Heyward’s words for this song and for “My Man’s Gone Now” “the best lyrics in the musical theater.”
Abbie Mitchell made the first recording on 19 July 1935, with Gershwin conducting and playing piano. The opera opened at the Colonial Theatre in Boston on 30 September 1935, and a recording by Billie Holiday in September 1936 was the first to reach the American pop charts, at number 12. The Jazz Discography listed 1,161 official releases of the song in 2005, fourth among jazz standards. Bluegrass and old-time musicians have recorded it too. Doc Watson and David Grisman included it on Doc & Dawg (Acoustic Disc, 1997), and Billy Strings and the mandolinist Don Julin recorded it for their duo album Rock of Ages in 2013.
