Rhapsody In Blue At 100
by Howard Lawes
George Gershwin's composition, Rhapsody in Blue, one of the most recognisable pieces of music of any genre is 100 this year. It was commissioned by the band leader Paul Whiteman and its premiere was at the Aeolian Hall in Manhattan on 12 February 1924 played by the Paul Whiteman Palais Royale Orchestra. The reaction from the audience was very enthusiastic and the recording, made in June 1924, went on to sell a million copies. Rhapsody in Blue was one of several pieces played on the same evening as Paul Whiteman attempted to enlighten his audience about the latest trends in music. Even the avant-garde classical composer from Paris, Igor Stravinsky and British-born conductor Leopold Stokowski, among other musical luminaries were present, emphasising both Whiteman's and Gershwin's desire for recognition of themselves and of American music by leaders in the field of both classical and popular music genres.
George Gershwin was the son of Jewish, immigrant parents who moved to America to escape persecution in Russia. He was born in 1898 and from the age of eleven it was obvious that he had immense talent as a pianist, monopolising the piano that his parents had bought for George's older brother Ira to play. For whatever reason Gershwin eschewed a formal music education and at the age of fifteen started work as a pianist. Before early record players arrived, music for domestic consumption was provided on sheet music and even as records became available sheet music was used to sell records. Gershwin got a job playing the latest sheet music so the music-buying public could hear what it sounded like. Although light classical and dance music were popular, Gershwin came to be influenced by ragtime and early jazz and he incorporated these influences in his first successful composition, Swanee. The lyrics by Irving Caesar owe their inspiration to the plantation songs of Stephen Foster, and the homesickness of those who took part in the great migration of African Americans from the southern states to the north. It was sung by the very popular singer Al Jolson, and in the manner of minstrelsy, he controversially sometimes performed the song in blackface although, in his defence, Jolson was also a supporter of black musicians and singers. The song was one of the most popular of the 1920s, selling four million records and one million copies of sheet music. Its popularity was such that George Gershwin was able to concentrate on other projects without having to worry too much about financial viability. We can listen to Al Jolson singing the song here.
In 1922, George Gershwin collaborated with the songwriter Buddy DeSylva to compose the one-act "jazz opera" Blue Monday which was also known as Opera a la Afro-Americane and later as 135th Street. The characters in the piece are Afro-American but the original cast was white with black faces, a rather offensive state of affairs that had started to change with the success of shows with black casts such as Shuffle Along (1921) heralding the Harlem Renaissance. In Gershwin's 1935 opera, Porgy and Bess black performers were cast in all the major roles. Blue Monday is considered as Gershwin's first attempt at symphonic jazz, fusing classical, ragtime and jazz music although operatic parody had long been part of the American vaudeville tradition. Elsewhere, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring composed in 1913, incorporated jazz-like structures that were labelled 'modernist' at the time, while Erik Satie's composition Parade, for Ballet Russe, with Picasso designing the costumes, incorporates elements of jazz rhythm. Jazz music became popular in Paris at the end of the first World War when James Reece Europe's Harlem Hellfighters Band entertained the crowds as victory was celebrated and took the city by storm as African American jazz musicians realised how different life could be in a more liberal society.
George Gershwin and his lyricist brother Ira cooperated on some successful Broadway shows in the early 1920s, impressing the popular band leader Paul Whiteman who commissioned George to write a piece for his concert which was to be called "An Experiment in Modern Music". Famously, Gershwin either forgot about the commission or declined and left himself very little time in which to compose it after Whiteman emphasised the importance of his concert. Gershwin related to biographer Issac Goldberg that he was inspired by the sounds of a train journey, "I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness". While many critics would not describe Rhapsody in Blue as 'true jazz' it does include various hallmarks of jazz composition including blue notes, syncopation and rhythms derived from observation of life, and at the time jazz was a widely misused word, as exemplified by Whiteman describing himself as the "King of Jazz". The piece was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé and to enable it to fit on a record had to be played at slightly faster tempo than Gershwin intended. Ferde Grofé's contributions as orchestrator and subsequently as arranger for later versions of the piece were very significant and played a considerable part in its popularity.
The first 1924 recording of Rhapsody in Blue was acoustic on Victor records (here). George Gershwin also recorded a piano roll and then in 1927 an electrically recorded version was produced. Gershwin, as pianist, took part in a performance in London in 1925 by the Savoy Orpheans which was broadcast by the BBC. Since then there have been thousands of performances and recordings.
Whiteman himself used the piece as his signature tune and Whiteman is one of the stars of the 1945 Warner Brothers biographical film, Rhapsody in Blue - The Story of George Gershwin and a clip is available here. There have been some particularly notable recordings by Leonard Bernstein (1959) with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (here), Andre Previn (1971) with the London Symphony Orchestra (here), and George Gershwin (1925 piano roll) accompanied by Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Columbia Jazz Band, New York Philharmonic (1976).
Perhaps some of the more interesting performances are by Duke Ellington in 1925, 1932 and a recording on his 1963 album, Will Big Bands Ever Come Back (here) which informs both the growth of Ellington's own development of symphonic jazz and his qualified admiration for Gershwin. Perhaps one of the outstanding renditions of Rhapsody in Blue was at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games opening ceremony when it was performed by 84 pianists.
While George Gershwin is barely mentioned in serious jazz literature, he had a huge impact on the "modern music" of the 1920s and Jazz Age America. He was a very successful composer of popular music but aspired to be equally successful in the classical world. He was admired by classical composers such as Ravel and when Ravel visited New York in 1928, they spent a lot of time together visiting the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem and listening to Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club. Gershwin is accused of composing 'fake jazz' and appropriating African American music but as David Schiff notes in his book Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, "In music appropriation is sometimes the sincerest form of admiration".