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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- I. Portraits of the Artist
- 1 Ira Gershwin: “In person, my brother was a good deal like his music ” (1961)
- 2 Frances Gershwin Godowsky: “George Gershwin Was My Brother ” (1962)
- 3 Kay Swift: “Did you ever feel that a composer resembled his music?” (ca. 1970)
- 4 Oscar Levant: “Variations on a Gershwin Theme” (1939)
- 5 Verna Arvey: “George Gershwin through the Eyes of a Friend” (1948)
- 6 “Gershwin Bros.” (1925)
- 7 Isaac Goldberg: “Childhood of a Composer” (1931)
- II. The Growing Limelight (1919–1924)
- 8 George Gershwin: Letter to Max Abramson (1918)
- 9 Dolly Dalrymple: “Pianist, Playing Role of Columbus, Makes Another American Discovery: Beryl Rubinstein Says This Country Possesses Genius Composer” (1922)
- 10 George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (February 18, 1923)
- 11 “Whiteman Judges Named: Committee Will Decide ‘What Is American Music’” (1924)
- 12 Paul Whiteman and Mary Margaret McBride: “An Experiment” (1926)
- 13 Olin Downes: “A Concert of Jazz” (1924)
- 14 Carl Van Vechten: Letter to George Gershwin (February 14, 1924)
- 15 James Ross Moore: “The Gershwins in Britain’” (1994)
- 16 Ira Gershwin: “Which Came First?” (1959)
- III. Fame and Fortune (1924–1930)
- 17 Philip Furia: “Lady, Be Good!” (1996)
- 18 Ira Gershwin: Letter to Lou and Emily Paley (November 26, 1924)
- 19 Alec Wilder: “That Certain Feeling” (1972)
- 20 Carl Van Vechten: “George Gershwin, an Amencan Composer Who is Writing Notable Music in the Jazz Idiom” (1925)
- 21 Samuel Chotzinoff: “New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall” (1925)
- 22 Lawrence Gilman: “Mr. George Gershwin Plays His New Jazz Concerto” (1925)
- 23 “Paul Whiteman Gives ‘Vivid’ Grand Opera; Jazz Rhythms of Gershwin’s ‘135th Street’”(1925)
- 24 George Gershwin: “Our New National Anthem” (1925)
- 25 George Gershwin: “Jazz Is the Voice of the American Soul” (1926)
- 26 George Gershwin: “Does Jazz Belong to Art?” (1926)
- 27 George Gershwin: “Mr. Gershwin Replies to Mr. Kramer” (1926)
- 28 Abbe Niles: “The Ewe Lamb of Widow Jazz” (1926)
- 29 Carleton Sprague Smith: “d’Alvarez-Gershwin Recital”(1927)
- 30 Allen Forte: “Someone to Watch over Me’” (1990)
- 31 “George Gershwin Accepts $100,000 Movietone Offer; Fox to Pay that Sum for Film Version of Musical Comedy—Composer Gets Bid of $50,000 for Rhapsody in Blue Rights” (1928)
- 32 George Gershwin: Letter to Mabel Schirmer (1928)
- 33 Deems Taylor: “An American in Paris: Narrative Guide” (1928)
- 34 Olin Downes: “Gershwin’s New Score Acclaimed” (1928)
- 35 George Gershwin: “Fifiy Years of American Music…Younger Composers, Freed from European Influences, Labor toward Achieving a Distinctive American Musical Idiom” (1929)
- 36 George Gershwin: “The Composer in the Machine Age” (1930)
- 37 Mary Herron Dupree: “‘Jazz,’ the Cntics, and American Art Music in the 1920s” (1986)
- IV. Maturity (1930–1935)
- 38 George Gershwin: “Making Music” (1930)
- 39 Robert Benchley: “Satire to Music” (1930)
- 40 John Harkins: “George Gershwin” (1932)
- 41 Arthur Ruhl: “Of Thee I Sing; Kaufman-Ryskind Musical Comedy Satire at the Music Box” (1931)
- 42 “A Music Master Talks of His Trials” (1932)
- 43 Cathenne Parsons Smith: From William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions (2000)
- 44 Richard Crawford “George Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’ (1930)” (1993)
- 45 Allan Lincoln Langley “The Gershwin Myth” (1932)
- 46 William Daly: “George Gershwin as Orchestrator” (1933)
- 47 Olin Downes: “George Gershwin Plays His Second Rhapsody for the First Time Here with Koussevitzky and Boston Orchestra” (1932)
- 48 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (June or July 1932)
- 49 Alexander Woollcott: “George the Ingenuous” (1933)
- 50 George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1934)
- 51 George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (193s)
- 52 Frederick Jacobi: “The Future of Gershwin” (1937)
- V. Porgy and Bess
- 53 Joseph Swain: From “America’s Folk Opera” (1990)
- 54 George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward: Selected Correspondence (1932–1934)
- 55 “George Gershwin Arrives to Plan Opera on Porgy” (1933)
- 56 Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes: “Porgy and Bess, Native Opera, Opens at the Alvin; Gershwin’s Work Based on DuBose Heyward’s Play” (1935)
- 57 George Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Catfish Row: Mr. Gershwin Tells the Ongin and Scheme for His Music in that New Folk Opera Called ‘Porgy and Bess’” (1935)
- 58 Todd Duncan: From an Interview by Robert Wyatt (1990)
- 59 Anne Brown: From an Interview by Robert Wyatt (1995)
- VI. Last Years: Hollywood (1936–1937)
- 60 Edith Garson: “Hollywood—An Ending” (1938)
- 61 Isabel Morse Jones: “Gershwin Analyzes Science of Rhythm” (1937)
- 62 Nanette Kutner: “Radio Pays a Debt” (1936)
- 63 Alec Wilder: “A Foggy Day” (1972)
- 64 George Gershwin: Letters to Zenna Hannenfeldt (1936)
- 65 George Gershwin: Letters to Mabel Schirmer (1936–1937)
- 66 George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1937)
- 67 George Gershwin: Letter to Henry Botkin (1937)
- 68 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)
- 69 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)
- 70 George A. Pallay: Letter to Irene Gallagher (1937)
- VII. Obituaries and Eulogies
- 71 Report in Variety (1937)
- 72 Arnold Schoenberg: “George Gershwin” (1938)
- 73 Olin Dowries: “Hail and Farewell: Career and Position of George Gershwin in Amencan Music” (1937)
- 74 Irving Berlin: “Poem” (1938)
- 75 Jerome Kern: “Tribute” (1938)
- 76 “Gershwin Left $341,089 Estate to His Mother; ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ Appraised at ‘Greatest Value’ and Opera Rights of Nominal Interest’ to the Residue” (1938)
- 77 Ira Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)
- VIII. As Time Passes
- 78 “Music by Slide Rule” (1944)
- 79 Ira Gershwin: “Gershwin on Gershwin” (1944)
- 80 Vernon Duke: “Gershwin, Schülinger, and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences” (1947)
- 81 Leonard Bernstein: “Why Don’t You Run Upstairs and Wnte a Nice Gershwin Tune?” (1955)
- 82 Duke Ellington: “George Gershwin” (1973)
- 83 Wayne Shirley: “George Gershwin: yes, the sounds as well as the tunes are his” (1998)
- Chronology
- Selected Bibliography
- Credits
- Index
George Gershwin: “Our New National Anthem” (1925)
George Gershwin: “Our New National Anthem” (1925)
- Chapter:
- 24 George Gershwin: “Our New National Anthem” (1925)
- Source:
- The George Gershwin Reader
- Author(s):
Robert Wyatt
John Andrew Johnson
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327113.003.0024
This chapter presents an essay by George Gershwin about jazz music and its possible future role in American music, which was published in the August 1924 issue Theatre Magazine. In this essay, Gershwin acknowledges that the true importance of jazz in American music is a subject over which controversy has raged back and forth. He expresses his opinion that jazz is going to revolutionize American music and that it will become absorbed in the great musical tradition as all other forms of music.
Keywords: George Gershwin, jazz, American music, forms of music, musical tradition
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- I. Portraits of the Artist
- 1 Ira Gershwin: “In person, my brother was a good deal like his music ” (1961)
- 2 Frances Gershwin Godowsky: “George Gershwin Was My Brother ” (1962)
- 3 Kay Swift: “Did you ever feel that a composer resembled his music?” (ca. 1970)
- 4 Oscar Levant: “Variations on a Gershwin Theme” (1939)
- 5 Verna Arvey: “George Gershwin through the Eyes of a Friend” (1948)
- 6 “Gershwin Bros.” (1925)
- 7 Isaac Goldberg: “Childhood of a Composer” (1931)
- II. The Growing Limelight (1919–1924)
- 8 George Gershwin: Letter to Max Abramson (1918)
- 9 Dolly Dalrymple: “Pianist, Playing Role of Columbus, Makes Another American Discovery: Beryl Rubinstein Says This Country Possesses Genius Composer” (1922)
- 10 George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (February 18, 1923)
- 11 “Whiteman Judges Named: Committee Will Decide ‘What Is American Music’” (1924)
- 12 Paul Whiteman and Mary Margaret McBride: “An Experiment” (1926)
- 13 Olin Downes: “A Concert of Jazz” (1924)
- 14 Carl Van Vechten: Letter to George Gershwin (February 14, 1924)
- 15 James Ross Moore: “The Gershwins in Britain’” (1994)
- 16 Ira Gershwin: “Which Came First?” (1959)
- III. Fame and Fortune (1924–1930)
- 17 Philip Furia: “Lady, Be Good!” (1996)
- 18 Ira Gershwin: Letter to Lou and Emily Paley (November 26, 1924)
- 19 Alec Wilder: “That Certain Feeling” (1972)
- 20 Carl Van Vechten: “George Gershwin, an Amencan Composer Who is Writing Notable Music in the Jazz Idiom” (1925)
- 21 Samuel Chotzinoff: “New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall” (1925)
- 22 Lawrence Gilman: “Mr. George Gershwin Plays His New Jazz Concerto” (1925)
- 23 “Paul Whiteman Gives ‘Vivid’ Grand Opera; Jazz Rhythms of Gershwin’s ‘135th Street’”(1925)
- 24 George Gershwin: “Our New National Anthem” (1925)
- 25 George Gershwin: “Jazz Is the Voice of the American Soul” (1926)
- 26 George Gershwin: “Does Jazz Belong to Art?” (1926)
- 27 George Gershwin: “Mr. Gershwin Replies to Mr. Kramer” (1926)
- 28 Abbe Niles: “The Ewe Lamb of Widow Jazz” (1926)
- 29 Carleton Sprague Smith: “d’Alvarez-Gershwin Recital”(1927)
- 30 Allen Forte: “Someone to Watch over Me’” (1990)
- 31 “George Gershwin Accepts $100,000 Movietone Offer; Fox to Pay that Sum for Film Version of Musical Comedy—Composer Gets Bid of $50,000 for Rhapsody in Blue Rights” (1928)
- 32 George Gershwin: Letter to Mabel Schirmer (1928)
- 33 Deems Taylor: “An American in Paris: Narrative Guide” (1928)
- 34 Olin Downes: “Gershwin’s New Score Acclaimed” (1928)
- 35 George Gershwin: “Fifiy Years of American Music…Younger Composers, Freed from European Influences, Labor toward Achieving a Distinctive American Musical Idiom” (1929)
- 36 George Gershwin: “The Composer in the Machine Age” (1930)
- 37 Mary Herron Dupree: “‘Jazz,’ the Cntics, and American Art Music in the 1920s” (1986)
- IV. Maturity (1930–1935)
- 38 George Gershwin: “Making Music” (1930)
- 39 Robert Benchley: “Satire to Music” (1930)
- 40 John Harkins: “George Gershwin” (1932)
- 41 Arthur Ruhl: “Of Thee I Sing; Kaufman-Ryskind Musical Comedy Satire at the Music Box” (1931)
- 42 “A Music Master Talks of His Trials” (1932)
- 43 Cathenne Parsons Smith: From William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions (2000)
- 44 Richard Crawford “George Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’ (1930)” (1993)
- 45 Allan Lincoln Langley “The Gershwin Myth” (1932)
- 46 William Daly: “George Gershwin as Orchestrator” (1933)
- 47 Olin Downes: “George Gershwin Plays His Second Rhapsody for the First Time Here with Koussevitzky and Boston Orchestra” (1932)
- 48 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (June or July 1932)
- 49 Alexander Woollcott: “George the Ingenuous” (1933)
- 50 George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1934)
- 51 George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (193s)
- 52 Frederick Jacobi: “The Future of Gershwin” (1937)
- V. Porgy and Bess
- 53 Joseph Swain: From “America’s Folk Opera” (1990)
- 54 George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward: Selected Correspondence (1932–1934)
- 55 “George Gershwin Arrives to Plan Opera on Porgy” (1933)
- 56 Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes: “Porgy and Bess, Native Opera, Opens at the Alvin; Gershwin’s Work Based on DuBose Heyward’s Play” (1935)
- 57 George Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Catfish Row: Mr. Gershwin Tells the Ongin and Scheme for His Music in that New Folk Opera Called ‘Porgy and Bess’” (1935)
- 58 Todd Duncan: From an Interview by Robert Wyatt (1990)
- 59 Anne Brown: From an Interview by Robert Wyatt (1995)
- VI. Last Years: Hollywood (1936–1937)
- 60 Edith Garson: “Hollywood—An Ending” (1938)
- 61 Isabel Morse Jones: “Gershwin Analyzes Science of Rhythm” (1937)
- 62 Nanette Kutner: “Radio Pays a Debt” (1936)
- 63 Alec Wilder: “A Foggy Day” (1972)
- 64 George Gershwin: Letters to Zenna Hannenfeldt (1936)
- 65 George Gershwin: Letters to Mabel Schirmer (1936–1937)
- 66 George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1937)
- 67 George Gershwin: Letter to Henry Botkin (1937)
- 68 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)
- 69 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)
- 70 George A. Pallay: Letter to Irene Gallagher (1937)
- VII. Obituaries and Eulogies
- 71 Report in Variety (1937)
- 72 Arnold Schoenberg: “George Gershwin” (1938)
- 73 Olin Dowries: “Hail and Farewell: Career and Position of George Gershwin in Amencan Music” (1937)
- 74 Irving Berlin: “Poem” (1938)
- 75 Jerome Kern: “Tribute” (1938)
- 76 “Gershwin Left $341,089 Estate to His Mother; ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ Appraised at ‘Greatest Value’ and Opera Rights of Nominal Interest’ to the Residue” (1938)
- 77 Ira Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)
- VIII. As Time Passes
- 78 “Music by Slide Rule” (1944)
- 79 Ira Gershwin: “Gershwin on Gershwin” (1944)
- 80 Vernon Duke: “Gershwin, Schülinger, and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences” (1947)
- 81 Leonard Bernstein: “Why Don’t You Run Upstairs and Wnte a Nice Gershwin Tune?” (1955)
- 82 Duke Ellington: “George Gershwin” (1973)
- 83 Wayne Shirley: “George Gershwin: yes, the sounds as well as the tunes are his” (1998)
- Chronology
- Selected Bibliography
- Credits
- Index
