Eva Jessye

And Dr. Serge Kuzavitsky declared it a great advance in American opera. Musicologist Charles Ham said it was the greatest nationalist opera of the century, not only of America, but of the world. George Gershwin's Porgy embass owes some of this praise to a charismatic Southeast Kansas woman who was also remembered as an artist in residence at Pittsburgh State University, Eva Jessie. Although Eva Jessie could not read or write music, her choir already had a national reputation in 1935 when Gershwin announced that he would stage his folk opera about the down-and-out characters living in a South Carolina fishing village known as Catfish Row. Jessie realized the production would be an ideal experience for her African-American choir when they auditioned. This is Randy Roberts, curator and archivist at Pittsburgh State University. Gershwin was very directly involved in the selection of all the performers in the original

production of Porgy embass, and he selected Epigessi and her choir as the original choral director for Porgy embass, as well as the performers on his own. Eva Jessie's personal experiences as an African-American and as a published folklorist helped Gershwin with nuances that would make his portrayal of Catfish Row ring true. She took the original score that Gershwin and Debose Hayward and Ira Gershwin had produced. She was able to add some authentic touches to the score, as well as some interpretation of the score that just made the whole musical production much more realistic and true to the African-American influences that Gershwin had hoped to capture.

Eva Jessie's influence on Porgy embass went beyond the original production, once again Randy Roberts. She was actually given sort of the title of unofficial guardian of Porgy embass. She was selected as the first choral director by George Gershwin and for subsequent productions of that as well. The major revivals of Porgy embass that occurred in the 1940s, she was directly involved as choral director in those performances.

She was also chosen to be the choral director in the 1950s when the U.S. State Department selected Porgy embass as a performance that they wanted to send around the world. And looks like there is sacrifice in the sight of exactly what Gershwin was told about before the Oùs Ettplaci. There is a spectacle in the corner which he enjoyed with peak rock music. This feat was featured on my longtime attempt to master a verses from Oùs Ettplaci. Born in Coffeeville, Kansas, Eva Jessie's life was full of many firsts. She worked with Harry Pollard on the motion picture, Uncle Tom's Cabin. She worked with producer King Vieter's Hallelujah. This was the first black musical motion picture. And she was the choral director on that as well.

She was the first to interpret Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein's opera for Saints in Three Acts in 1934. In the 1970s, as Pittsburgh State University approached its 75th anniversary, then curator of special collections, Gene DeGroeson, brought Eva Jessie to Pittsburgh State with an invitation to work as an artist in residence. In addition to her work with the PSU Music and Theatre departments, Jessie worked with DeGroeson to establish the Eva Jessie collection. We also have a large collection of her personal papers. These include her correspondence, letters to and from people such as Eugene Ormondi, Leopold Stakowski, George and Ira Gershwin of course, and many other very prominent influential musicians. We also have a large collection of photographs, many of the performers

that Eva Jessie worked with through the years. In addition, there are things like some recordings of Porgy and Best performances. There are programs from Porgy and Best performances, including the original 1935 performance, Porgy and Best at the Boston Colonial Theatre. This occurred before the opening in New York at the Alvin Theatre on October 10th. So we have Eva Jessie's copy of that program. We also have Eva Jessie's copy of the original 1935 score that runs the over 500 pages of Porgy and Best with all of her handwritten notes, the changes that she tried to incorporate and recognizes some of the influence and the contributions that she made to the original performance. A number of articles from the Eva Jessie collection will be on display in the lobby of Pittsburgh's Memorial Auditorium as a Broadway production of Porgy and Best comes to Pittsburgh this week. Here's Judy Collins, manager of the Pittsburgh Memorial Auditorium and Convention Center.

This is an opportunity for Southeast Kansas residents and the local four state people to actually see a Broadway play. We don't have to travel a long ways, we don't have to pay a large amount and we have it right here in Southeast Kansas and it's just going to be all the glitz and glamour and the professionalism that a Broadway play brings. Duke Ellington said, nobody knows more of the true African-American idiom than Eva Jessie. My hat's off to her and her great choir. Ira Gershwin said of her, Eva Jessie is a great musician, a great coach, a great lady. And Rusty Jones, music professor at Pittsburgh State University,

remembers Jessie this way. Eva Jessie was one of the most dramatic people that I ever knew. She was not happy with things to be neutral or tame. She really had a flair for dramatic production. She was a very creative person. A lot of people found Eva rather difficult to work with because she knew what she wanted, she knew the quality she wanted and she was not happy until that quality was there. Oh, I can't sit down. A song from the picnics scene in Porgy Embass seems to accurately describe Eva Jessie's philosophy of life. Her personality, her demeanor and her talent declared to all, I am a woman.

I am a woman of African descent. I am a black woman and I am happy to be exactly as God made me. For KRPS, I'm Bobby Barajas. Oh, I can't sit down. Oh, I can't sit down. Oh, I can't sit down.