In 1992 or 93, after Babes in Toyland, Houston Grand Opera contacted me about Blues Opera. They were thinking about a tour of Porgy and Bess and wanted another piece for African-American actors to tour with it. Theyt asked me to look into both Blues Opera and its source, St Louis Woman, since I would be orchestrating it for them. So I schlepped out to Queens to an office of a woman representing Harold Arlen and looked over the Blues Opera vocal score. I sent Houston my report; I actually thought St Louis Woman was a better piece.
Nothing ever came of this, but I have friends working on the show right now, and another conductor friend just sent me an email asking me what I knew about the show. When Encores! announced they were doing it years ago, I took Rob Fisher, their MD then, to dinner and begged for bthe orchestration job. I gave him a copyt of my Houston report, and he hired Ralph Burns. He never returned the report.
After all of that, I had never heard the Kostelanetz recording, so now I will!