Miles Davis: Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab

As Act II, Scene 3 of Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess (1935) opens, dawn breaks over Catfish Row. As always, daylight summons forth itinerant street peddlers. First the plaintive Strawberry Woman, and in turn the crabby Crab Man hawk their pitiful wares. In opera, expository material is often a necessary evil, throwaway stuff whose sole purpose is to move the plot along. Not so with Gershwin, who transforms the mundane into a masterful vignette of the struggle for survival. For this interpretation, Miles Davis and Gil Evans faithfully recapture the pathos of Gershwin's peddlers, yet add an ineffable, transcendent dignity. Through the gently breaking dawn of Gil's gorgeous flutes, muted trumpets and trombone/French horn choir, breaks Miles's heart-wrenching flugelhorn, crying across the ages, reminding us that just as the quiet desperation of everyday life is universal, so too is our ultimate triumph. These four minutes of music are as miraculous, mysterious and irresistibly beautiful as a sunrise.