Featured In
ALBUMNIGHTFALL: Gershwin & Satie - SingleGeorge Gershwin, Erik Satie & Seid Muhammad Shah
Albums by George Gershwin
ALBUMGeorge Gershwin Performs Original Piano WorksGeorge Gershwin
ALBUMGershwinAnima Eterna Brugge, Jos van Immerseel, Claron McFadden, Bart Van Caenegem & George Gershwin
ALBUMGeorge Gershwin Plays His Finest Works & OthersGeorge Gershwin
ALBUMRhapsody In BlueGeorge Gershwin
ALBUMGershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - 3 Preludes - An American in Paris - Second Rhapsody (1927-1931)George Gershwin
ALBUMShall We Dance? Big Band Arrangements of GeraldoThe John Wilson Orchestra & George Gershwin
ALBUMGershwin At the Piano - Kickin' the Clouds AwayGeorge Gershwin & Rudolph O. Erlebach
ALBUMBy George!/By Clive!Clive Lythgoe & George Gershwin
ALBUMGershwin: The Piano Rolls, Vol. 2George Gershwin
ALBUMGeorge GershwinGeorge Gershwin
Artist Playlists
George Gershwin Essentials
Sure, he had rhythm—but also respect in the clubs and concert halls of the Jazz Age.
George Gershwin: The Songwriters
He penned some of jazz's most enduring songs.
Artist Biography
A Broadway tunesmith and classical composer of the Jazz Age, George Gershwin fashioned an urbane, confident brand of American music that bridged the purported gap between popular and “serious” music. Born in 1898 in Brooklyn, NY, Gershwin began working as a Tin Pan Alley pianist at age 15. In 1919 he wrote his first major hit, “Swanee,” which was popularized by Al Jolson in the 1920 musical Sinbad, and composed his first classical work, Lullaby, for string quartet. Gershwin spent the next decade writing songs for Broadway shows and revues—nearly all featuring the witty, punning lyrics of his brother, Ira—including “Embraceable You,” “’S Wonderful,” and “I Got Rhythm.” The strands of Gershwin’s career coalesced in the revolutionary Rhapsody in Blue, introduced in 1924 in an experimental concert of symphonic jazz by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. Polishing his skills as an orchestrator, Gershwin wrote further orchestral works including the Piano Concerto in F (1925), An American in Paris (1928), Second Rhapsody (1931), and Cuban Overture (1932). Most ambitious was the groundbreaking opera Porgy and Bess (1935), which featured an all-Black cast and an amalgam of Southern folk, gospel, and jazz-tinged melodies. A lifelong learner, George moved west with Ira in 1936 to write songs for Hollywood, but his career was tragically cut short after he developed a brain tumor and died in 1937.
Hometown
Brooklyn, NY, United States
Genre
Jazz