Who Was George Gershwin?

　　The most celebrated musical event of 1920s America was the 1924 premier of composer George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue" in Manhattan. Now considered the quintessential jazz composition, Gershwin maintained that it wasn't part of the genre at all.

　　George and his brother and collaborator, Ira, Gershwin were born to Russian émigrés in New York's fabled Lower East Side. The brothers showed early musical genius, and George soon moved on to play piano in the best salons of the millionaires and royalty of Manhattan and London.

　　Gershwin tapped into the rhythms, melodies, and moods of U.S. popular music. He maintained that jazz was a way of performing music, not writing it, although his biggest successes came in what is called "The Jazz Age."

　　Gershwin's largest and most enduring work is the evocative folk opera "Porgy and Bess," based on black slaves' lives. It was the first U.S. opera to triumph overseas. "Rhapsody " was Gershwin's first major composition based on popular music.
In 1925, Gershwin pioneered the use of symphonic music, playing his own piano, in "Concerto in F." But Gershwin also wrote wildly popular musicals for the masses, :including "Lady Be Good," "Strike Up the Band," "Funny Face," and "Of Thee I Sing," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in drama in 1932.

　　Gershwin's astounding career was cut short when he died of a brain tumor at age 39 in 1937. Many of us hum his tunes, known to subsequent generations as covers by other vocalists and pianists, without knowing their origin -- "Lady Be Good," Summertime," "I've Got a Crush on You," and "Someone to Watch Over Me."

　　And, arguably, the first few bars of the overture to "Rhapsody in Blue" are among the most recognizable musical stanzas ever written.