"An Experiment in Modern Music" proved to be a somewhat tedious evening. Brother Ira, now Gershwin's lyricist, suggested the title "Rhapsody in Blue" after hearing the proliferation of minor notes in his brother's experimental composition, a piece that, according to George, would be a "musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot.our blues, our metropolitan madness." The name stuck, the piece was finished on schedule, and the concert began. Nevertheless, the amiable young composer agreed to write a piece entitled "An American Rhapsody" and was given three weeks to complete it. A press release went out announcing that pianist George Gershwin would compose a special piece for his orchestra, an announcement that caught Gershwin unaware. Orchestra leader Paul Whiteman was presenting a jazz concert on entitled "An Experiment in Modern Music" at Aeolian Hall in New York.
Moving on to Broadway, he wrote scores for revues and musical comedies, notably "Lady Be Good," "Strike Up The Band," "Girl Crazy" and "Of Thee I Sing." During this time Gershwin enrolled in Columbia University, where he studied Nineteenth Century Romanticism in Music and Elementary Orchestra, filling his "tune books" with, ideas, song, and musical composition. His first break came three years later when his song "Swanee" made a star out of singer Al Jolson. Gershwin attended Commerce High School in Manhattan, training to be an accountant in his dad's restaurant, but left at 16 when he was hired to play the piano for ten hours a day on Tin Pan Alley. After rapidly turning over four piano teachers, Gershwin settled on Charles Hambitzer, who turned the tide of the boy's musical awareness by making him conscious of harmony. Scholarly Ira went back to his books, and Mother Rose invested in musical instruction for academically wayward but talented George. At age 11 his mother purchased a piano for his bookworm brother Ira but, as soon as the piano was placed against the wall, it was George who immediately climbed on the stool and played song after song to his parents' astonishment. When family friends purchased a player piano, the transfixed boy learned to play the instrument by copying key depressions produced by the scroll. Four years later, the hooky-playing lad heard violin prodigy Max Rosensweig (later concert violinist Max Rosen) from the window of the school assembly that he chose not to attend and decided he wanted to be his accompanist. A hyperactive child and truant student, Gershwin's first introduction to music occurred at age six when he heard Anton Rubinstein's "Melody in F" floating out of a music store. In a peripatetic life style they occupied more than 25 different apartments in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. While Morris's original trade was the shoe business, his manifold business ventures of billiard parlors, cigar stores, Turkish baths, turf accounting and, finally, a restaurant kept the family on the move. Jacob Gershovitz was the second son of the four children (Ira, Jacob, Arthur and Frances) born to Morris and Rose Gershovitz, immigrants who fled to the New World escaping the pogroms of Czarist Russia.
He composed over 700 pop songs including "I Got Rhythm," "The Man I Love," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," and "Nice Work If You Can Get It." His serious works include the opera "Porgy and Bess," and the American classic "Rhapsody in Blue." American composer, famous for show tunes, swing rhythms and his unique style of blending commercial pop, jazz and blues music with classical structure.
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