“PAUL WHITEMAN’S HISTORIC AEOLIAN HALL CONCERT OF...

“PAUL WHITEMAN’S HISTORIC AEOLIAN HALL CONCERT OF 1924.” Reconstructed and conducted by Maurice Peress; Dick Hyman, Ivan Davis, pianos. Musicmasters MMD-60113T (two compact discs). Listeners curious to know about the other music on the program that introduced Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” will find their queries answered in this recorded version of the 60th-anniversary concert Peress organized in 1984. Whiteman’s “Experiment in Modern Music” included such morceaux as Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 1 with banjo accompaniment; Victor Herbert’s last piece, “A Suite of Serenades” (an early use of prepared piano); medleys by Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Zez Confrey; and Ferde Grofe’s “Russian Rose,” a pastiche that must be heard to be disbelieved. The attempt to meld symphonic music with the improvisatory spirit of jazz never generated a trend, but it did popularize the Gershwin, recorded here in its original orchestration, played with idiomatic brio by Davis and conducted with delectable raffishness by Peress. A fascinating anthology, if, at 79 minutes, an ungenerous one.