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Gershwin, Jazz, and the Rhapsody. The Gershwin ... saxophone. Gershwin also
incorporated jazz rhythms in the Rhapsody in Blue. Syncopated ...
... melodies, and the entire piece is characterized by Gershwin's energy and rhythmic
sense.” In “Rhapsody in Blue” he combines Jazz, Impressionism and ...
... Gershwin did this by making jazz serious enough to be accepted, as demonstrated
with the performance of Rhapsody in Blue, a jazzy piece performed by a major ...
... decide to follow his success with Rhapsody In Blue ... most popular work for orchestra
written by Gershwin. ... motion picture “The King Of Jazz,” featuring music ...
... Rhapsody in Blue was completed by Gershwin in 1924. ... Gershwin wrote this piece
primarily for its production by Paul Whiteman and his jazz band. ...
Submitted by LBIguy98 on April 25, 2007
Category: Music and Movies
Words: 3474 | Pages: 14
Views: 266
Popularity Rank: 37,385
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The Gershwin biographer Isaac Goldberg wrote in 1931 that with the Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin “fired the jazz shot heard round the world.” This symphonic jazz concerto may be the most famous piece of American classical music. Undoubtedly the most famous classical work of its own time, it was a serious concert work that contained elements of popular music in the 1920s including the style of jazz. Gershwin’s Rhapsody even remains a part of American popular culture today; its famous themes are heard from the big screen in Disney’s Fantasia 2000 to the television screen in United Airlines commercials. While the popularity of the Rhapsody cannot be questioned, one can ask the question to what extent does Gershwin actually employ elements of jazz music in his so-called “symphonic jazz concerto?” After all, it would seem that the Rhapsody does not contain many of jazz’s most important aspects, such as swing or improvisation. Why, then, was the Rhapsody labeled a “jazz concerto?” Though the Rhapsody lacked some aspects of jazz that would today be considered essential, in the context of jazz in the 1920s Gershwin successfully combined a number of jazz elements into a “serious” composition, including jazz instrumentation and orchestration, jazz rhythms, and the blues scale.
By modern definitions of jazz, it would seem that the Rhapsody does not contain many of its most important aspects, such as swing or improvisation, but jazz was defined very differently in the 1920s. When Gershwin wrote the Rhapsody, the word “jazz” was applied to more than one genre of music. Its definition was very broad; it “could mean all things to people in the 1920s.” Charles Hamm divides jazz in the 1920s into three categories of music: jazz/blues music performed by black musicians for black audiences, jazz/blues music performed by black musicians for white audiences, and “so-called jazz” music performed by white musicians for white audiences. The widespread discussion of...
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