THE BROTHERS GERSHWIN
George and Ira Gershwin were lifelong collaborators and friends. Their contributions to American music are instantly recognizable and many—“I Got Rhythm,” “S’Wonderful,” “You Can’t Take That Away from Me”—are still frequently heard today.
George and Ira then teamed up for a number of suc- cessful Broadway musicals, including: Lady Be Good (1924), Show Girl (1929) and Girl Crazy (1930)—from which one of the Gershwins’ most famous songs, “I Got Rhythm,” originated.
Ira Gershwin was the first lyricist to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, for the 1932 musical comedy Of Thee I Sing. George, the younger brother, was the composer. He was capable of compos- ing for both symphony halls (“Rhapsody in Blue” pre- miered at Carnegie Hall) and jazz clubs, and some of his best-known works meld the jazz aesthetic with sophisti- cated classical composition.
George’s first song, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em, When You Got ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em” was published when he was sev- enteen years old. The tune earned George five dollars.
Ira started his career in mu- sic a few years after George, penning the lyrics for the Broadway show Two Little Girls in Blue (1921) under the pseudonym Arthur Francis. Ira’s work was well received, providing the elder Gersh- win with a foot in the Broad- way door.
George and Ira’s grandest achievement, one might argue, is the astoundingly rich and complex music of Porgy and Bess. The score, in addition to generating many popular jazz stan- dards (“Summertime,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” among others), was well ahead of its time in combining many forms of music into what George Gershwin described as a “folk opera.”
In the words of The Gersh- wins’ Porgy and Bess co- adaptor, Diedre Murray:
“It’s a hybrid. There’s such a wide range of influences and sounds in Porgy and Bess. Gershwin used to go up to Harlem to hear jazz, and then he also spent time on the islands in South Caro- lina. I also think there’s a lot of Puccini and Bizet in there. And Wagnerian flourishes. And ragtime. I even hear R&B and rap.”
Just two years after the premiere of Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin was diagnosed with a malig- nant brain tumor. He died months later, on July 11, 1937, at the age of thirty-eight.
Ira didn’t write any new material for three years after the death of his brother. Once he returned to the music world, Ira spent four- teen years writing lyrics for a wide range of theater and film musicals before retiring.
George received his first and only Academy Award nomination posthumously, in 1937, for a song he wrote with Ira for the film Shall We Dance. The song, “You Can’t Take That Away From Me,” is a beloved classic.
In 2007, the Library of Con- gress named its Prize for Popular Song after the Ger- shwin brothers. The award recognizes “the profound and positive effect of popu- lar music on the world’s culture.” The first three win- ners of the prize were Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.
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