1. George Gershwin Bibliography
Looking back through the history of music we can see composers of all periods of time who truly made a difference. Classical and Romantic composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Stravinsky, and Mozart are some of the first that come to mind. As music traveled from Europe to the Americas, it was not until the early 1900's that Northern America would raise up it's first American composer to break through the music scene in a whole new fashion. George Girshwin was the man to take music to a whole new level that would even be apart of what fueled such a radical American movement known in history as the Roaring 20's. He took popular "devils music," which at the time was jazz and blues coming from the African culture, and mixed it with the traditional classical concert sound that originated in Europe and had been played for hundreds of years. He could be equated as an American equivalent of Verdi. .
His name, George Gershwin, conjures memories and nostalgic imaginings of the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, flappers, musicals tumbling forth in glorious profusion from his creative, fertile imagination. Gershwin represented all this, of course, and so much more: his serious compositions, which confounded the critics at first performances, remain highly popular in the concert repertoire, and his stage and film songs continue to be jazz and vocal standards. He was a bundle of energy; a school dropout at fifteen whose wrote the enormously successful Swanee at nineteen. A social genius who rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous of two continents. a natural athlete, a painter of considerable talent, a generous, gregarious man with an ego the size of a ballroom who helped promote the careers of other musicians such as Vernon Duke, and Oscar Levant, George was your modern "rock star." He never experienced a dry spell or the composer's equivalent of writer's block, and he was equally adept at composing music to which words were added or fitting music to book and lyrics already written, as he did in Porgy and Bess.
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1898. ... In 1924, Gershwin released his most famous work Rhapsody in Blue. ... As Gershwin's fame and wealth spread, so did his social status. ... After all, "An evening with Gershwin was a Gershwin evening- (Peyser 151). From 1930 to 1937, Gershwin became part of the Hollywood eye for songs for films. ...
From the moment I started to get near the Gershwin Theatre I felt some kind of uplifting energy inside of me. As soon as I came to the doors I saw lot of people waiting to get in. All of us came for the same reason to see the "Riverdance". I felt very enthusiastic as I walked down the lobby to the e...
Grappelli, Stephane Grappelli, Stephane (1908-1997), French violinist, one of the few musicians to adapt the violin successfully to jazz. Grappelli was born in Paris. He studied classical music at the Paris Conservatoire, but after hearing American improvisational jazz recordings, h...
When I am feeling melancholy, Gershwin's tonally minor " Over the Rainbow", clusters the originally pure tones into a clump of dismantled dissonance. "Over the Rainbow" produces a joyous feeling- yet when broken chords reveal themselves inside the simple black notes of Gershwin's thoughts, reflections of my broken life shines through. ...
JAZZ Jazz is the art of expression set to music! Jazz is said to be the fundamental rhythms of human life and mans contemporary reassessment of his traditional values. Tracing the origins of Jazz in the formative years is not an easy task. The music called jazz was born sometime around 1895 in...
~~~~King of Jazz~~~~ Some revere him as the "king of Jazz" others formally call him Mr. Whiteman, and his friends simply call him Paul. In 1915 Paul joined the San Francisco Symphony, and during WW1 he was the conductor for an army band. At a ripe age, just pushing 30, Whiteman is in his prim...
How does the director portray different aspects of life in NY city? The film Manhattan portrays a different sort of life than the series the sopranos. Manhattan shows a hectic way of life whereas the sopranos has a more laid back approach. The film Manhattan at the start has classical Gershwin...
Waller was a great entertainer and in 1934 and at George Gershwin's party, with a delightful performance, one of Victor Records representatives who delighted by his playing and entertaining, scheduled a recording session for Fats with the company. ...