Billboard : 03/26/1955
Score of 75

The flashy talents of clarinetist DeFranco and pianist Peterson jell neatly here in the well-arranged ork. setting. DeFranco has won all of the jazz clarinet polls for the past nine years, and Peterson usually comes close in his department, so these are names to reckon with. The fact that they play Gershwin isn’t important, since both men reduce the material at hand into what has become their personal clichés. But it does make for a thoroly captivating cover by David Stone Martin, which, together with plastic sealed sleeve, is a strong selling asset.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 04/30/1955

The first is a handsome program of George Gershwin with Buddy DeFranco, clarinet, Oscar Peterson, piano, and a big string band (Norgran MGN-1016). The soloists are the great point here. I have frequently found DeFranco’s jazz-band playing cold if brilliant, but as an expounder of Gershwin in moderate and slow tempi he has a reedy, summery warmth and his inventive qualities show to glowing advantage. His rapport with Peterson is splendid; Oscar is a singing as well as a swinging pianist. THe tunes include several from Porgy and Bess and such other classics as The Man I Love and They Can’t Take That Away From Me.

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Down Beat : 04/20/1955
Jack Tracy : 5 stars

I regretfully have had to agree the last couple of years with those persons who complained that Buddy DeFranco‘s magnificent skill and improvisatory sense were dulled by his “cold” sound – that his music was lacking in emotion.

I knew it was not always so – I had heard him numerous times with the sextet Count Basie headed four years ago, and had heard his clarinet sound like a torch rather than an icicle.

Now comes this LP on which he, Oscar Peterson, and a large orchestra (including 14 strings) cruise joyfully through Gershwin, and it is the DeFranco I think of when I place his name in the clarinet slot in Down Beat’s annual critics poll.

Perhaps it was the stimulus of Peterson, who has developed into one of the most capable and listenable pianists in all jazz. Perhaps it was the cushion afforded by the orchestra, which allowed Buddy to relax and not worry about carrying the entire load himself. At any rate, here is some of the tastiest music of this or any other year.

I Was Doing All Right is the best example of DeFranco’s “new look” – he offers a pulsing, penetrating solo; Benny Goodman‘s influence on him is much in evidence on Strike Up, where he and Oscar romp joyfully in counterlines before Buddy flashes off; Man I Love is some more superbly melodic pensiveness from Buddy preceding a doubletime offering from Pete, with Someone getting the reverse treatment – Oscar opens meditatively, then DeFranco kicks it up to comfortable blowing tempo.

Buddy is at home on this record and I suspect it is going to win him more fans and friends than most of his other discs put together.

By me, it’s a gasser.

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Liner Notes by Norman Granz

Most musicians when asked to give a list of their favorite composers will usually have at the top, or near the top of the list George Gershwin. They feel that Gershwin wrote in such a fashion that it gives them the most room for improvisation. You will always find that when people are asked to do albums of various composers, invariably Gershwin is on the list. (Sings, of course, are different, since they must consider lyrics as well as melody, but instrumentally, Gershwin is the boy for most musicians.)

Buddy DeFranco has recorded many albums for me and for two years has been insisting that he be allowed to do a Gershwin album, and this is it. After completing a tour with Jazz At The Philharmonic, Buddy had an opportunity to play with and listen to Oscar Peterson every night for several weeks and he insisted besides that Oscar Peterson be included in this album.

In this album, then, Buddy DeFranco and Oscar Peterson play Gershwin, with their jazz approach. Skip Martin arranged I Got Rhythm, I was Doing All Right, and The Man I Love, and the arranges by Russ Garcia were It Ain’t Necessarily So, Bess, Someone to Watch Over Me, S’ Wonderful, Strike Up The Band, Porgy, and They Can’t Take That Away From Me.