Ain't It Awful?

One of the great songs for the dog days of summer is "Ain't It Awful, the Heat?" The song is from the musical drama "Street Scene"--book by Elmer Rice, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by the wonderful Harlem poet Langston Hughes.

"Ain't It Awful" is delivered as a sung conversation between two women sitting on their east side New York doorsteps at the end of a sizzling summer day. We remember Ann Mortifee and Ruth Nichol delivering it on the Playhouse stage in an Ouzounian production, and the heat was palpable.

The other summer music we think of at this time of year is Duke Ellington's "Harlem Air Shaft." Duke said, "You get the full essence of Harlem in an air shaft. You hear fights, you smell dinner, you hear people making love. You hear intimate gossip floating down. You hear the radio. An air shaft is one great loudspeaker. You hear people praying, fighting and snoring."

And then, the one summer song everyone knows: "Summertime," from "Porgy and Bess." It's meant as a lullaby, but when you hear John Coltrane play it, you realize it's really a blues.

Ain't it awful.