George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a story of jazz, race and the fraught notion of America’s melting pot

February 12, 1924, was a frigid day in New York Metropolis. Nonetheless that didn’t stop an intrepid group of concertgoers from gathering in midtown Manhattan’s Aeolian Hall for “An Experiment in Trendy Music.” The organizer, bandleader Paul Whitemanwanted to level out how jazz and classical music could come collectively. So he commissioned a model new work by a 25-year-old Jewish-American upstart named George Gershwin.

Gershwin’s contribution to this technique, “Rhapsody in Blue,” would go on to exceed anyone’s wildest expectations, becoming certainly one of many best-known works of the 20 th century. Previous the reside efficiency hall, it might appear in iconic films similar to Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” and Disney’s “Fantasia 2000.” It was carried out all through the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympicsand within the occasion you ever fly on United Airways, you’ll hear it participating in all through the preflight safety films.

I’ve spent virtually twenty years researching and writing about this piece. To me, “Rhapsody” isn’t some static composition caught before now; barely, it’s a always evolving piece of music whose meaning has modified over time.

Programming “Rhapsody” for reside exhibits proper this second has grow to be significantly of a double-edged sword. A century after it premiered, it stays a crowd favorite – and practically always ensures a sold-out current. Nonetheless an rising variety of college students are starting to see the work as a whitewashed mannequin of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene.

A cobbled-together hit

Whiteman commissioned Gershwin to place in writing “Rhapsody” sometime in late 1923. Nonetheless as a result of the story goes, the composer forgot about his venture until he be taught regarding the upcoming reside efficiency in a newspaper is Jan. 4, 1924.

Gershwin wanted to work shortly, writing as time allowed in his busy schedule. Manuscript proof suggests that he solely labored on the piece a whole of 10 days over the span of plenty of weeks.

George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a story of jazz, race and the fraught notion of America’s melting pot
A replica of the first net web page of George Gershwin’s manuscript for ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’
Gabriel Hackett/Archive Footage/Getty Photographs

Accordingly, he relied on the acquainted melodies, harmonies, rhythms and musical buildings that had started to garner him acclaim as a most popular composer for the Broadway stage. This music was an increasing number of influenced by early jazz, as a result of the improvised, syncopated and blues-infused sound of Black musicians similar to Louis Armstrong made its means north from New Orleans. Gershwin moreover mingled with, and was influenced by, plenty of the great Harlem stride pianists of the day, along with James P. Johnson and Willie “The Lion” Smith.

No matter being shortly cobbled collectively, “Rhapsody in Blue” ultimately supplied an entire lot of a whole lot of knowledge and copies of sheet music. Gershwin’s private performances of the work on tour moreover helped improve its recognition.

Nonetheless success moreover opened up the piece to criticism – notably that Gershwin had appropriated Black music.

Black musicians actually really feel snubbed

This is not solely a Twenty first-century critique by music historians. Even once more then, some Black artists have been miffed.

Nonetheless barely than calling it out in print, they did so by way of their very personal art work.

In 1929, blues artist Bessie Smith starred in a short film often known as “St. Louis Blues,” primarily based totally on the monitor of the an identical title by composer W.C. Useful. It choices an all-Black cast, along with members of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Hall Johnson Choir. Instrumental and vocal variations of Useful’s monitor current the sonic backdrop for this 15-minute film – with one very pointed exception.

Smith performs the part of Bessie, an unrequited lover to a duplicitous gambler named Jimmy. Throughout the final scene, after a earlier falling out, Jimmy and Bessie reconcile in a membership. They embrace on the dance flooring to the strains of “St. Louis Blues.”

Nonetheless unbeknownst to the love-struck Bessie, Jimmy rigorously picks her pocket and unmercifully shoves her once more to her bar stool. After Jimmy flashes his newly acquired bankroll, the opening clarinet glissando of “Rhapsody in Blue” begins. All through this short-term, 20-second cueJimmy boastfully backs out of the membership, bowing and tipping his hat like a performer acknowledging his ovation.

The temporary film ‘St. Louis Blues’ takes a fragile dig at Gershwin 14 minutes in.

It’s arduous to not see the subtext of introducing Gershwin’s well-known piece at this second: Merely as Jimmy has robbed Bessie, the film implies that Gershwin had pilfered jazz from the Black neighborhood.

One different musical response to “Rhapsody” emerged in 1927 from Gershwin’s stride pianist buddy, James P. Johnson: “Yamekraw.” Author Perry Bradford billed the work as “not a ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ nevertheless a Rhapsody in Black and White (Black notes on White paper).”

In any case, the “black notes” have been further than merely the ranking itself. Johnson demonstrates how a Black musician would technique the rhapsody fashion.

Caught throughout the middle with ‘Blue’

Gershwin as quickly as described “Rhapsody” “as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America – of our large melting pot.”

The problem with the “melting pot” metaphor is that it asks immigrants to go away behind cultural practices and identities in order to assimilate into the majority inhabitants.

And that’s merely what Whiteman’s musical experiment at Aeolian Hall a century up to now was all about: He sought, as he put it, to “make a lady out of jazz.”

As a result of the reside efficiency’s program be taught“Mr. Whiteman intends to stage out, with the assistance of his orchestra and associates, the massive strides which have been made in trendy music from the day of the discordant Jazz … to the truly melodious music of proper this second.”

In several phrases, he wanted to fold the interval’s trendy jazz music into classical music – and, in doing so, draw out the inherent magnificence throughout the beast, making it further acceptable to white audiences.

“Rhapsody in Blue” and totally different classical-jazz hybrid works prefer it might rapidly grow to be usually referred to as “middlebrow” music.

This fraught time interval emerges from the home between the so-called “lowbrow” and “mental,” descriptors that discover artworks on a scale from pedestrian to psychological. These phrases initially related to the pseudoscience of phrenology, which drew conclusions about intelligence primarily based totally on skull type and the location of the ridge of 1’s brow line.

Mental music, made by and for white people, was considered in all probability probably the most refined.

Nonetheless mental music might also conveniently elevate lowbrow music by borrowing – or barely, appropriating – musical elements similar to rhythm and harmony. Merging the two, the low will get to the middle. However it absolutely could in no way get to the very best by itself phrases.

If Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” is meant to be heard as a “musical kaleidoscope of America,” you’ll need to bear in mind who’s holding the lens, what music will get added to the combo, and the best way it has modified as quickly as admitted.

However it absolutely’s moreover important to take into account that 100 years is a really very long time. What the custom values, and why, inevitably modifications. The an identical is true for “Rhapsody in Blue.”

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