Fascinating Rhythm: George Gershwin’s Musical Odyssey from the Lower East Side to Hollywood

One of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century spent his formative years in our neighborhood. He was the second child of Russian Jews who immigrated to the city during the 1890s, fleeing anti-semitism back home. The family spent the 1900s and part of the 1910s on the Lower East Side. Despite their proximity to what was at the time one of the centers of Yiddish music and performance in the world, the household did not take much of an interest in music. Nonetheless, while living at 91 Second Avenue, the parents purchased a piano for their eldest son. The child studiously avoided the instrument. His younger, 11-year old brother, however, surprised everyone by fluidly performing several popular songs that he had observed a neighbor playing.

Impressed, the parents decided to foster their second born’s talent. Within a couple of decades, he had written dozens of standards and bridged the distance between classical music and jazz, becoming perhaps the most widely esteemed composer in the country. 

We’re speaking, of course, of George Gerswhin (September 26, 1898 — July 11, 1937). Success came quickly to Gershwin. He dropped out of school at 15 to work as a musician (not a career move we would advise, unless you also happen to be a preternaturally gifted melodist). By then, he had studied under a few music tutors, some of whom were so impressed by Gershiwn’s talent that they refused to charge for their services. 

The budding musician first found work playing at nightclubs, making piano rolls, and working as a “song plugger,” (a song plugger’s job was to demonstrate sheet music for music publishers). Before long, word of this wunderkind (wunderteen?) spread and allowed Gershwin to find work as a rehearsal pianist for Broadway shows and as an accompanist. These gigs exposed him to music by the likes of Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern that would come to inspire and influence his songwriting.  

Gershwin’s first published songs date back to 1916. Three years later, star entertainer Al Jolson performed one of his tunes, “Swanee,” in a Broadway show. It became a smash, earning Gershwin immediate renown and $157,000 (in 2024 dollars) in royalties in that year alone. Not long thereafter, Gershwin started collaborating with his brother Ira, who would pen lyrics for his sibling’s inexhaustible wellspring of melodies. Within a decade’s time, the brothers had written a significant portion of the Great American Songbook, including much covered classics such as “Lady Be Good,” “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Embraceable You,” and “‘S Wonderful.” Most formed part of shows that were often hits in their day. Today, they’re mostly remembered for songs that the Gershwins wrote for them. 

The many standards written by Gershwin form only half of the story of his outsized musical legacy. Along the way, he also composed extended pieces that employed a jazz vocabulary within classical music forms. Several have became some of the most enduring and popular compositions in the 20th century cannon. The first originated with an uncharacteristic failure, an attempt at a jazz-opera that shut down after one performance, but not before bandleader Paul Whiteman had heard it and discovered in Gershwin a kindred spirit. Whiteman, unlike the critical establishment at the time, regarded jazz as serious music and strived to have it treated as such.

With that aim in mind, he commissioned a piece from Gershwin for an upcoming “experimental modern music concert.” Gershwin enthusiastically agreed. And then forgot about it. Forgot about it until he came across an article in the paper publicizing the new Gerswhin composition that would make its debut in a month’s time. Propelled perhaps by panic, he completed the piece In three weeks. (Or he almost did. He had to improvise portions of the unfinished piano solo during the first performance and signal to Whilteman, the conductor, its conclusion.) The result, Rhapsody in Blue (1924), was an instant success and overhauled in one fell swoop people’s conception of jazz’s compositional possibilities. 

Gershwin further developed the musical ideas that gave rise to Rhapsody in Blue in several other sustained compositions. The Concerto in F (1925), which was commissioned the day after the debut of Rhapsody in Blue, incorporates a variety of jazz elements, including Charleston rhythms, pentatonic runs, and blues progressions. An American in Paris (1928), fuses jazz and French impressionist influences into a tone poem inspired by a visit to Paris, where he went hoping to advance his compositional knowledge with the help of some of the major musicians based there at the time (Ravel supposedly asked him how much he earned and, upon hearing the answer, replied, “you should give me lessons”). Although the composers turned Gershwin down, afraid to ruin his individual musical sensibilities, he managed to produce, in this composition, his most sophisticated orchestral arrangement to date. The piece went on to inspire the 1951 Oscar winning Vincente Minnelli film by the same name, starring Gene Kelly.

Finally, Porgy and Bess (1935) an English-language folk opera, adapts southern black musical forms into a classical operatic structure. The piece was mired in racial controversy from the start, first, because of Gershwin’s insistence on casting of Black opera singers for the leads parts and second, because of the stereotypical depiction of some of the characters. Nonetheless, Porgy and Bess is regarded as one of Gershwin’s greatest accomplishments and some of its songs, like “Summertime,” are career highlights in their own right. 

The Gershwin brothers moved to Hollywood in 1936. They had by then written songs for successful movie musicals and decided to relocate to more easily devote themselves to this endeavor. Their output included such classics as “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” and “Nice Work if You Can Get It.” During this period, Gershwin enjoyed the company of frequent tennis companion and nearby resident Arnold Schoenberg, who also rejected Gershwin’s requests for compositional lessons. He is said to have replied, “I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you’re such a good Gershwin already.”  

In 1937, Gershwin began experiencing a series of health symptoms, some of which had arisen years before: olfactory hallucinations, coordination problems, headaches, blackouts, drastic mood swings, and weight loss. Only after he had a fainting spell and slipped into a coma did doctors arrive at a brain tumor diagnosis. He did not survive the curative surgery for long. He died the following morning at the age of 38, leaving behind a full life’s worth of accomplishment and an insatiable longing for what was to come.