The Incredible Gershwin Brothers

Photo Credit: Saul Jay Singer

Until George Gershwin, serious American orchestral composers were predominantly influenced by the European schools of music but, by composing original musical works based upon the rhythms, melodies and moods of American popular music, he proved that the finer elements of jazz could be integrated into music to form the basis of symphonic creations typically and uniquely American. He manipulated Tin Pan Alley jazz into the mainstream by merging its cadences and tonality with the contemporary popular songs of his time. One commentator perhaps best summarized the distinctiveness of George’s music: “he combined the musical heritage of his Eastern European Jewish antecedents with the syncopated sounds of 42^nd & Broadway.”

The prolific Gershwin wrote 30 musical comedies for stage and films, most with the lyrics of his older brother, Ira, including Lady Be Good (1924), Funny Face (1927), Strike Up the Band (1929), Girl Crazy (1930), and Of Thee I Sing (1932), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in drama, the first musical comedy to do so. His orchestral works include the legendary Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Concerto in F (1925), and An American in Paris (1928); his operas include Blue Monday (1922) and the renowned Porgy and Bess (1935); and his best-known songs include Swanee (made famous by Al Jolson), Summertime (from Porgy and Bess), Fascinating Rhythm (1924), Someone to Watch Over Me (1926), Funny Face (1927), ‘S Wonderful (1927), Embraceable You (1928), I Got Rhythm (1930), and They Can’t Take That Away from Me (1937), which earned Gershwin a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

Exhibited here is a program page for a concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue, given by Gershwin himself and by renowned tenor Lames Melton, who has also signed. Works by Gershwin on the program include the Concerto in F, Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and several songs, including Fascinating Rhythm, I Got Rhythm, and The Man I Love. The concert tour ran from January 14, 1934 through February 10, 1934.

George (1898-1937) was born Jacob Gershowitz on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His grandfather, Yaakov Gershowitz, the son of a rabbi, had been born in Odessa and served 25 years in the Russian artillery as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army, which earned him the rarely-bestowed privilege upon Jews in czarist Russia to travel freely, including leaving the Russian Pale and establishing residence in St. Petersburg. To avoid Russian military conscription, George’s father, Moishe (later Morris) joined the major stream of Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century fleeing to the United States, where he settled in New York; married Rosa Bruskin, whom he had known in Russia; and became an American citizen (1898).

Morris frequently changed dwellings with each new business, moving his family to some 28 different residences during their first two decades in America. The one constant seemed to be living in or near the Yiddish Theater District, where the Gershwins frequented the local Yiddish theaters and George occasionally landed a role onstage as an extra. George grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home, as his parents did not speak English until much later.

According to most authorities, the family’s Judaism was neither religious nor political but, rather, cultural and casual. The secularism of George’s parents may be attributable, at least in part, to the fact that they lived in cosmopolitan St. Petersburg as opposed to the more insular towns and shtetls of the Russian Pale. According to these authorities, Ira, George’s lyricist brother, was the only Gershwin to have a bar mitzvah, the family virtually never attended synagogue, and the Gershwin family never observed the Jewish holidays.

However, in a 1938 interview, Rosa stated that, though she had put Orthodox Judaism behind her – “other than a devout belief in the Ten Commandments” (an interesting assertion, given the 5^th commandment to “keep the Sabbath day holy”) – the family “adhered rigidly to the Jewish faith and the home was strictly Orthodox. [The children] were taught by rabbis and were all Bar-Mitzvah.” George’s aunt remembers Passover Seders regularly hosted by Moishe and, lending credence to her recollection, famous actress Kitty Carlisle spoke of attending a Gershwin family Seder where co-hosts George and Oscar Levant presided over a service “in a kind of mad jazzy rhythm,” which she characterized as “a big joke.”

Moreover, there are several correspondences in which George blessed G-d for various positive developments in his life, including one where he wrote, “I pray to G-d that he will send me good blues for my concerto.” He told one romantic interest, “Thank G-d that your mother is Jewish,” and he refused to marry the great love of his life, composer Kay Swift, because she wasn’t Jewish. He had a ten-year relationship with Kay, with whom he frequently consulted about his work (he dedicated Oh, Kay to her), and he would not wed even after she divorced her (ironically, Jewish) husband to commit to a long-term relationship with him.

During his later years, Gershwin supported various Jewish charities and causes. For example, shown here is a February 14, 1934 check for $25 to the “Hadassah Jeritza Concert” written and signed by Gershwin.

Maria Jeritza (1887-1982) was a celebrated Moravian soprano long associated with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. Glamorous and beautiful, her sensational rise to fame earned her the nickname The Moravian Thunderbolt, and getting her to perform at a benefit concert was a real coup for Hadassah.

The basis for Gershwin’s best-known work, the folk opera Porgy & Bess, was his deep interest in both Catfish Row and the Jewish shtetl. The Gershwin family’s several residences in Harlem brought George into contact with the mushrooming black population there, and he traveled through the Gullah region of South Carolina to conduct research for Porgy, during which he developed an even stronger feeling for African-American culture. After investing two years on the work, he was keenly disappointed that it was initially a commercial failure, though it came to be recognized as an American cultural classic and one of the most important musical developments of the 20^th century. The audacious novelty of the work created great controversy, as music and theatre authorities debated at length whether it was opera or a grand Broadway musical.

Gershwin told composer Lazare Saminsky that “while I actually do not know much about Jewish folksong, I think that many of my themes are Jewish in feeling” and, in a 1925 interview with The American Hebrew, he declared that “the traditional Hebrew religious melodies have had a marked influence upon modern music” and that “the Hebrew chants possess a peculiarly plaintive wail which gives them a universal appeal.”

Accordingly, there is a particularly fascinating Jewish angle in the song It Ain’t Necessarily So from Porgy, in which Gershwin parodies religious fundamentalism through dope-peddling con man Sportin’ Life, who scolds and mocks other residents of Catfish Row in Charleston for believing preposterous Biblical stories, including David slaying Goliath, Methuselah living for 900 years (Genesis actually says 969), and Jonah living inside a whale. (And when Ira wrote, “The things that we’re liable to read in the Bible… it ain’t necessarily so,” was he consciously or unconsciously reflecting the antipathy of the Gershwin Brothers to Jewish practice and observance?) Gershwin’s melody for the song’s famous refrain is the traditional tune for the first beracha by recipients of aliyot to the Torah, still chanted today: Bar’chu et Hashem Ham’vorach. In this regard, some commentators amusingly note that while you could keep George and Ira out of shul, you couldn’t keep shul out of the Gershwins.

It Ain’t Necessarily So was a particularly powerful piece, coming as it did in 1943 during the height of World War II and the Holocaust. When Porgy and Bess made its European debut in Copenhagen at the Royal Danish Opera, the Nazis, enraged by a “degenerate” entertainment dominated by “sub-humans” – i.e., written by Jews about blacks – sought, but initially failed, to shut down the production. Later in 1944, when the Nazis threatened to use the Luftwaffe to bomb the Royal Opera to rubble, the producers decided that discretion is the better part of valor and ended the performances. However, Danish radio responded by playing It Ain’t Necessarily So alongside Nazi propaganda broadcasts.

George’s early intimacy with Yiddish musical theatre, generally popular with Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, proved efficacious when he was invited to collaborate on a Yiddish operetta with Sholom Secunda, a gifted musician infused in the Jewish tradition. In 1929, he signed a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company to write an opera based on Szymon Ansky’s The Dybbuk, and he began to create some music for the work and even planned to travel to Europe to study Jewish music traditions there to lend further authenticity to the work. The proposed musical never materialized, however, because, as it turned out, rights to the play had already been assigned to Italian composer Lodovico Rocca.

Unfortunately, the ability to assess fully Gershwin’s deliberate handling of Jewish material took a huge hit when he was forced to abandon The Dybbuk project, though we do have an insight into the nature of the material provided by his early biographer, Isaac Goldberg, who heard Gershwin play some of his proposed work. Goldberg characterized the music as “turning the room into a synagogue” with “the indistinct prayer of those to whom prayer has become a routine such as any other before coming to life as a Chassidic dance.”

In any event, the Jewish legacy of Gershwin’s music can still be seen through much of his existing work. Aside from It Ain’t Necessarily So, as discussed above, there is little question that many of his other motifs and melodies resemble Jewish prayer and cantorial chants. For example, according to many music historians, his famous “blue note” technique emerged from Jewish liturgical music, suggestive of the collective cry of an oppressed people, and that the opening clarinet upward slide in Rhapsody in Blue has its roots in Klezmer. One of his most famous tunes, ‘S Wonderful, seems to have been lifted intact from Noach’s Teive (“Noah’s Ark”), a number in Goldfaden’s operetta Akeidas Yitzchak (“The Binding of Isaac”). And he expressed some concern that Summertime might sound “too Jewish.”

In 1916, Gershwin recorded a piano roll medley including Dos Pintele Yid, a popular Yiddish song. Though he was not religiously observant, it was that very “little spark of Jewishness” that lived within him and occasionally manifested itself throughout his life and work. The Jewishisms in George’s music are most evident through his repeated use of expressive traits found in Biblical cantillation, including particularly in My One & Only (from Funny Face), and musicologists have also noted a resemblance between Gershwin’s music and snappy frailachs (Jewish folk-dance tunes).

In the May 15, 1936 signed correspondence on his personal letterhead exhibited here, Gershwin, who often reviewed manuscripts of proposed works by other musicians, refers a work with evident Jewish content to a Jewish organization:

Please pardon the delay in returning your manuscript to you. I found it interesting and timely but it is not the type of material which I feel qualified to handle. Your best opportunity, in my opinion, would lie with some Jewish organization. Why don’t you contact the Jewish Club, 23 West 73^rd Street? They are very active and I feel sure would be able to give you some valuable suggestions.

Founded in 1931 by a group of Jewish musicians and scholars, the Jewish Club, formerly called the “America-Palestine Institute of Musical Sciences,” or MAILAMM (the English acronym for the Hebrew name Machon Eretz Israel L’Mada-ei Ha-Musika), sought to explore and promote the musical culture of Eretz Yisrael and encourage musical creativity through concert programs, academic seminars, and educational programs. MAILAMM worked closely with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to create a music research department there and to build an important music library to facilitate forging musical links between Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora. Besides Gershwin, initial MAILAMM members included Jewish composers Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Block and Rubin Goldmark and Jewish violinist Mischa Elman.

Displayed here is an originally signed reproduction by Andy Warhol of George Gershwin from his famous series, Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century. The series, which premiered at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in March 1980, toured synagogues, Jewish Community Centers and regional museums to great public acclaim due, at least in part, to a sense of pride that one of America’s most famous artists had chosen famous Jews as his subject. The Ten Jews were the first time that Warhol ever featured a series on a particular race or religion, and it was also the first time that he made portraits of subjects who had died.

The original idea for the project came from Warhol’s dealer, Ronald Feldman, and the actual choice of the individual Jews was directed by Feldman with assistance from Israeli art dealer Alexander Harari and Susan Morgenstein, director of Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, who provided the relevant biographical details about each individual. Warhol was shown hundreds of old photographs and abundant background information on each before he finally chose his ten: Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Brandeis, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, George Gershwin, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Golda Meir, and Gertrude Stein. Warhol chose these ten not because of the role they played as 20^th century Jews but rather, as he explained, “Because I liked the faces.”

After Gershwin’s tragic death from a brain tumor, two simultaneous bicoastal Jewish funeral services were held for him, one at Temple Emanuel in New York City, officiated by Rabbi Nathan Perilman, and one at Temple B’nai Brith (now known as the Wilshire Boulevard Temple) in Los Angeles, officiated by Rabbi Edgar Magnin. To raise funds for a Gershwin Memorial Concert hall in Jerusalem, MAILAMM gave a concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on January 18, 1938.

* * * * *

The prolific Ira Gershwin (1896-1983) is best known for his collaborations on more than twenty Broadway musicals and motion pictures with his brother, George. His decision to refrain from leveraging George’s growing reputation, as he originally wrote under the pseudonym “Arthur Francis,” proved beneficial, as his lyrics were well received in their own right. The Gershwin Brothers collaborated for the first time on A Dangerous Maid, which played in Atlantic City and on tour and, in 1924, they teamed up to write their first Broadway hit, Lady, Be Good!, which launched them as one of the most influential forces in the history of the American Musical. He wrote some of the most memorable songs of the 20^th century, including brilliant lyrics for such Gershwin songs as The Man I Love, ‘S Wonderful, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, A Foggy Day, Someone To Watch Over Me, and Fascinating Rhythm. Many readers might not know that he also made important contributions to Harold Arlen’s Over the Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) when Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg sought his assistance, including writing the now famous lyric “If happy little bluebirds fly, beyond the rainbow, why, oh why can’t I?”

Ira charmed the audiences of stage and screen with his memorable lyrics, inspired the most popular singing stars of America and Europe, and caused critics to notice an art form they had never before taken seriously. He became the first songwriter to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, for Of Thee I Sing (1931), the first time that a musical comedy was honored by an award of such magnitude, and his award brought new respect to the musical comedy as an art form. He also received three Best Song Oscar nominations: for They Can’t Take That Away From Me, from Shall We Dance? (1938); for Long Ago and Far Away, from Cover Girl (1945); and for The Man That Got Away, a song he wrote for Judy Garland, from A Star Is Born (1955). His critically acclaimed book, Lyrics on Several Occasions (1959), an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age of American popular song. The music of the Gershwin Brothers continues to run deep in the American consciousness and, as one of the great American songwriting teams of all time, they were inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1971) and the Theatre Hall of Fame (1983).

It is part of American folklore that the Gershwin boys’ mother bought a piano so that Ira could take lessons, only to discover that it was George who had “the gift.” Ira turned to writing lyrics with lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, a high school friend, and he began his career in 1918 under the pen name of Arthur Francis before “coming out” as Ira Gershwin and beginning his historic collaboration with his brother. Like his brother, Ira was a thoroughly assimilated Jew and Judaism played virtually no role in his life, but he did marry a Jewish woman, Leonore (née Strunsky), whose philanthropy through the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts became a major force in the preservation and promotion of the Gershwin musical heritage.

Even before George’s death, Ira dedicated himself to being the guardian, perpetrator, and promoter of his brother’s legacy. In this December 5, 1935 correspondence, Ira grants permission to NBC in Radio City to broadcast Rhapsody in Blue.

In this autographed note, Ira writes:

I’m sorry, but I cannot autograph “Summertime” as this lyric was written by DuBose Heyward. I am, however, enclosing a copy of “Shall We Dance,” autographed.

The lyrics to Summertime, the opening aria from Porgy and Bess, were written by Heyward, a successful writer from an old South Carolina family, who was the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based. Heyward and his wife, Dorothy, turned Porgy into a play that premiered on Broadway in 1927 before Gershwin, in turn, turned it into an opera. Although it is commonly accepted that Ira was at least co-lyricist for Porgy and Bess, he here gives full credit for the lyrics of Summertime to Heyward.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this great work of American theatre has come under attack from the “woke” legions, who squeal that the story about an African-American community, which was created by “white collaborators” (and by Jews, at that) as an inappropriate depiction of black culture with dialect that reinforced stereotypes. What they fail to mention is that, aside from being a hallmark work reflective of its times, Gershwin insisted that all performances must be by black casts.

In this January 8, 1977 sheet handwritten and signed twice, Ira writes the first stanza of By Strauss, a song he co-wrote with George:

Beware of that popular music!
In dynamite danger must lurk
You hear in an awed way
The music of Broadway
And suddenly you go berserk!

Excerpt from ‘By Strauss’ by
George & Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin, Jan. 8, 1977.

In By Strauss, written by the Gershwin Brothers in 1936 to honor the monumental works of Johann Strauss and Johann Strauss II, the singer sings how he doesn’t like Broadway, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and Cole Porter and, in a humorous case of self-mockery, George Gershwin himself. Instead, he desires to dance to waltzes by the Strausses, as the lyrics reference three of Strauss’s best-known compositions, Let the Danube flow along, The Fledermaus, and Keep the Wine and Give Me Song:

Away with the music of Broadway
Be off with your Irving Berlin
No, I give no quarter to Kern or Cole Porter
And Gershwin keeps pounding on tin.

How can I be civil when hearing that drivel?
It’s only for night-clubbing souses
Just give me the free-‘n’-easy waltz, that is Vienneasy…

By Strauss was originally performed by musical actress Gracie Barrie in the 1936-1937 Broadway revue, The Show Is On directed by Vincente Minnelli, and the song was included in the 1951 musical motion picture American In Paris and sung by Gene Kelley, Oscar Levant, and Georges Guetary. As Ira explained in his memoir, Lyrics On Several Occasions, A Selection of State & Screen Lyrics Written for Sundry Situations, he had to rewrite the lyrics to the first stanza of By Strauss to avoid legal complications with the estates of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin, all composers mentioned by name in the original. Ira wrote two alternative first stanzas for the American In Paris version of By Strauss with our quote as shown here, which was actually the one that was discarded on the cutting room floor.

After George’s sad and untimely death, Ira did not write at all for three years. However, though his creative contributions were often overshadowed by his brother’s music, his mastery of songwriting later continued through collaborations with the likes of Moss Hart, Kurt Weill (Where Do We Go from Here? and Lady in the Dark), Jerome Kern (Cover Girl), Harold Arlen (A Star is Born), and Aaron Copland (North Star). Over the next fourteen years, he continued to write the lyrics for many film scores and a few Broadway shows. In 1947, he wrote new lyrics for eleven of his brother’s previously unused songs and incorporated them into the film The Shocking Miss Pilgram, starring Betty Grable. He died at the age of 86 and was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.