Gershwin, George 1898-1937

GERSHWIN, GEORGE 1898-1937

Songwriter/composer

Brilliance

Born Jacob Gershwine in Brooklyn, George Gershwin was the most brilliant figure among the cadre of brilliant song-writers of his time. Before his early death he had progressed from Broadway to classical forms and opera, treating the jazz idiom with increasing complexity.

Song Plugger

A gifted pianist, he was a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley at sixteen. In 1919 he wrote his first big hit, "Swanee," followed by scores for the George White Scandals (1920-1924) that included "Stairway to Paradise," "Do it Again," and "Somebody Loves Me." Gershwin was handsome and attracted admiration. He behaved with the confidence of his genius.

George and Ira

George Gershwin wrote only the music for his songs. After 1924 his older brother, Ira, was his lyricist for a string of successful Broadway and Hollywood productions. George's fame overshadowed Ira's reputation, but the two artists worked together comfortably. Their first hit musical was Lady, Be Good! in 1924 (which introduced "Fascinating Rhythm").

Symphonic Work

That year George performed his Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. The next year the Gershwins wrote two shows, Tell Me More and Tip-Toes; and George performed his Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Society. The brothers' scores during the 1920s included Oh, Kay! (1926) and Funny Face (1927). Some of their songs during this decade were "The Man I Love," "Do, Do, Do," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Strike Up the Band," "Funny Face," "'S Wonderful," and "Liza." In 1928 George's An American in Paris was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York. He was thirty years old.

Broadway and Opera

The 1930 show Girl Crazy ("I Got Rhythm") was followed the next year by Of Thee I Sing. This political satire, the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama, introduced "Love Is Sweeping the Country." George composed two symphonic works in 1932: Second Rhapsody and Cuban Overture. He then turned his energies to a project that had long interested him, an opera for black performers. As early as 1922 he had composed Blue Monday (135th Street ), a short work in opera format for black performers. George and Ira selected the novel Porgy, set in Charleston, South Carolina, for the libretto and collaborated with its author, DuBose Heyward. Porgy and Bess included "Summertime," "I Got Plenty of Nothin'," and "It Ain't Necessarily So." The 1935 production ran for 124 performances, but it subsequently achieved a world reputation through frequent revivals.

Hollywood

The Gershwins' first movie score was for the 1937 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle Shall We Dance, which featured "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me." Two more movies followed in 1937 and 1938 before George Gershwin died of a brain tumor at thirty-eight. The last song the brothers wrote was "Our Love Is Here to Stay." George Gershwin's name continues to evoke a sense of genius abruptly terminated and a nation deprived of the anticipated creations of that genius. Like so many of the celebrated figures of the 1920s, George Gershwin's career was intensely American. The son of Russian immigrants, he created another kind of art from the jazz and blues material of black American music.

Sources:

Edmund Jablonski, The Gershwin Years (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958);

Deena Rosenberg, Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration of George and Ira Gershwin (New York: Dutton, 1991);

Herman Wasserman, ed., George Gershwin's Song-book, revised edition (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1941);

Gershwin Plays Gershwin (Electra 79287).