Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition for solo piano and jazz band by George Gershwin.Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects and premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City.
This is Gershwin's only finished work based on a Jewish theme, and the title is a reference to the first names of four Jewish-Russian violinists, Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Toscha Seidel and Sascha Jacobsen.
The first jazz artist to be given some liberty in choosing his material was Louis Armstrong, whose band helped popularize many of the early standards in the 1920s and 1930s. [ 5 ] Some compositions written by jazz artists have endured as standards, including Fats Waller 's " Honeysuckle Rose " and " Ain't Misbehavin' ".
The two collaborated on the Broadway musicals Piccadilly to Broadway (1920) and For Goodness' Sake (1922), and jointly composed the score for Our Nell (1923). This was the beginning of a long friendship. Daly was a frequent arranger, orchestrator and conductor of Gershwin's music, and Gershwin periodically turned to him for musical advice. [21]
In 1920, the jazz age was underway and was indirectly fueled by prohibition of alcohol. [5] In Chicago, the jazz scene was developing rapidly, aided by the immigration of over 40 prominent New Orleans jazzmen to the city, continuous throughout much of the 1920s, including The New Orleans Rhythm Kings who began playing at Friar's Inn. [5]
Gershwin's lyricist Buddy DeSylva originally conceived a plan for writing a "jazz opera" set in Harlem and based on the Italian language verismo opera Pagliacci with Gershwin in the early 1920s, and Whiteman, who had built much of his reputation on such experimental fusions of different musical and dramatic genres, persuaded producer George ...
Initially, "Someone to Watch Over Me" was written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh, Kay! as a "fast and jazzy" up-tempo rhythm tune [8] [9] – marked scherzando (playful) in the sheet music [7] – but in the 1930s and 1940s it was recorded by singers in a slower ballad form, which became the standard.
Sheet music cover. Three Preludes is a collection of short piano pieces by George Gershwin, which were first performed by the composer at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City in 1926. Each prelude is a well-known example of early-20th-century American classical music, as influenced by jazz. The three pieces, when played together consecutively ...