George Gershwin, composer/pianist, 1898, Brooklyn, NY (d. July, 11 1937)
How many millions of times has the haunting "Summertime" or the toe-tapping "I Got Rhythm" been played around the world since George Gershwin pounded out the melodies on his piano while his brother Ira searched for just the right words creating musical history! George Gershwin was not only one of our country's most gifted songwriters and a major figure in the history of American music, but a serious composer who succeeded in blending jazz with classical music in a way that has endured the test of time.
George Gershwin, named Jacob Gershovitz, was the second of four children born to Russian immigrants who had married in America. George's brother Ira (older by two years) was expected to become the musician in the family, but George surprised everyone when he started playing some ragtime music that he had taught himself on the new piano his mother had bought for Ira. George studied the piano along with Ira and was introduced to the European classics by his teacher, Charles Hambitzer. At 16, Gershwin dropped out of high school to become a musician and worked as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger for ten hours a day and $15 a week. However, he was soon writing his own pieces. His first published song, "When You Want ‘Em, You Can't Get ‘Em," only earned him five dollars. He worked as the rehearsal pianist for a new musical "Miss 1917," by Jerome Kern and Victor Herbert, and by 1919, had composed a huge hit "Swanee" (lyrics by Irving Caesar). Al Jolson sang it in a show called "Sinbad," and the song sold more than a million copies of sheet music and more than two million records.
In 1919 he wrote his first complete Broadway score, "La, La Lucille" with lyrics by Buddy De Sylva. He wrote many Broadway musicals with his brother Ira including Lady, Be Good! (1924, including "Fascinating Rhythm"), Tip Toes (1925, including "Sweet and Low Down"), Oh Kay! (1926, including "Clap Yo' Hands", "Do-Do-Do", "Maybe", and "Someone To Watch Over Me"), Funny Face (1927, including “‘S Wonderful”), Rosalie (1928, including "How Long Has This Been Going On"), Show Girl (1929, including "Liza"), Strike Up the Band (1930, including "I've Got A Crush On You" and "Soon"), Girl Crazy (1930, including "But Not For Me", "Embraceable You", "Bidin’ My Time", and "I Got Rhythm"; the pit band for this show included such future famous names as Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman), Delicious (1931, including " Blah Blah Blah"), Of Thee I Sing (1931, the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize and which included "Of Thee I Sing", "Love Is Sweeping The Country", and "Who Cares"), Pardon My English (1933 including "Isn't It A Pity" and "Lorelei"), and Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933, including "Blue Blue Blue" and "Mine").
George Gershwin had serious ambitions in the realm of classical music, studying with classical composers Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger.
When he was 25 years old, he was commissioned to write a piece for a special concert, "An Experiment in Music," at New York's Aeolian Hall for Paul Whitemen. The result was "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924). The audience included famous classical composers such as Jascha Heifitz, Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Stokowski, Serge Rachmaninov, and Igor Stravinsky. This triumphant score was followed by "Piano Concerto in F" (1925) and "An American in Paris" (1928). Some critics didn't know what to make of his classical compositions and dismissed his work as tiresome, but his audiences loved them.
Since 1926, when he first read the novel "Porgy," by DuBose Heyward, Gershwin wanted to compose a full-length opera about life among the black inhabitants of "Catfish Row" in Charleston, South Carolina. The 700 pages of music was Gershwin's most ambitious creation and his favorite composition. He was convinced that he had produced "a work of art." His score straddled the world of opera and Broadway and included the classics, "Summertime", "Bess You Is My Woman Now," "It Ain’t Neccessarily So," and "I Got Plenty O’ Nuthin'." "Porgy and Bess," billed as an American folk opera (with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward), opened in New York in October of 1935 in a Broadway theatre and not an opera house. The opera ran for 124 performances, and closed without making enough money to recover the original investment; a financial failure. However, many consider it the greatest American opera written to date.
In 1937, after many successes on Broadway, the brothers decided to move to Hollywood. They teamed up with Fred Astaire, who was now paired with Ginger Rogers for "Shall We Dance," which included "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me." For "A Damsel In Distress" (1937) they wrote "Things Are Looking Up," "A Foggy Day," "Nice Work If You Can Get It," and "I Can't Be Bothered Now." At the time of his death, he was working on "The Goldwyn Follies" (1938) for which he and Ira wrote "Love Walked In” and "Love Is Here to Stay.” Other classics include "Somebody Loves Me" (lyric by Buddy DeSylva and Ballard MacDonald, from George White’s Scandals of 1924) and "The Man I Love" (lyric by Ira Gershwin, dropped from Lady Be Good! in 1924). At the beginning of 1937, Gershwin started complaining of dizzy spells and depression, but he continued to perform and to compose. On July 9, 1937, he fell into a coma. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor and emergency surgery performed. However, on the morning of July 11, 1937, Gershwin died at the age of thirty-eight.
George Gershwin once said about himself and his music: "Music must reflect the thoughts and aspirations of the people and the time. My people are American. My time is today." It is a fitting legacy that one of America's most beloved songwriters composed music whose time is infinite.
For more information about George Gershwin and his brother, Ira, please visit www.gershwin.com.
Gary Bartz, saxophone, 1940, NY
Gary is equally at home playing the alto as well as the soprano sax. He started with the soprano sax when he was around ten years old,and as a teenager worked in the band at his father's jazz club. While a student at the Juilliard School in New York for several years, he was impressed by such players as Grachan Moncur and Lee Morgan. After further music study in Baltimore, he began his professional career with the husband and wife team of Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln around 1965. After next working with Art Blakey in 1965-66, Gary formed his own band, the Ntu Troop, in 1967. In the following years he performed and recorded with "name" musicians such as Max Roach, Blue Mitchell, Charles Tolliver, and McCoy Tyner. In the early '70s he spent an important year with Miles Davis, while also making albums as a leader of his own group. In 1973 Bartz performed, toured, and recorded in Copenhagen with LeeKonitz and with Jackie McLean. He also composed several scores for television. Gary's early work was marked by a heavy, raw sound, together with very modern ideas, but from around 1976 onwards, his style tended to be blander and more oriented toward popular commercial taste. In 1981 he recorded some really fine bop solo work as a guest artist with Woody Shaw's group on the album "United."
Nelson Williams, Trumpet, 1917, Birmingham, AL
Nelson's earliest work was with the boogie-woogie pianist Cow-Cow Davenport In the early '30s, and with several traveling vaudeville shows. After working in Birmingham and Philadelphia , he joined Tiny Bradshaw's band in 1939 for a short time ,and then spent the next three years in the army. After his discharge he went to work for Billy Eckstine, John Kirby, and Billy Kyle. From 1949 to 1951 Nelson was a member of Duke Ellington's orchestra, with which he made several recordings,. In 1951 he moved to Paris, and remained in Europe, performing and recording swing and mainstream jazz as a trumpeter, singer, and leader. He also played with revivalist groups and rejoined Ellington's band for several tours between 1956 and 1970. In the early '50s he recorded as a leader of a group including Don Byas and Zutty Singleton while he was living in Europe. Nelson Williams died in 1973
