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GEORGE GERSHWIN’S ‘RHAPSODY IN BLUE’ IS A STORY OF JAZZ, RACE
AND THE FRAUGHT NOTION OF AMERICA’S MELTING POT  
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Ryan Raul Bañagale
February 7, 2024
The Conversation
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_ More and more scholars are starting to see the work as a
whitewashed version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene. _

It took George Gershwin just 10 days to pen the American classic.,
GAB Archive/Redferns via Getty Images

 

February 12, 1924, was a frigid day in New York City. But that
didn’t stop an intrepid group of concertgoers
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from gathering in midtown Manhattan’s Aeolian Hall for “An
Experiment in Modern Music.” The organizer, bandleader Paul Whiteman
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jazz and classical music could come together. So he commissioned a new
work by a 25-year-old Jewish-American upstart named George Gershwin
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Gershwin’s contribution to the program, “Rhapsody in Blue
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exceed anyone’s wildest expectations, becoming one of the best-known
works of the 20th century. Beyond the concert hall, it would appear in
iconic films such as Woody Allen’s “Manhattan
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“Fantasia 2000
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performed during the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles
Olympics [[link removed]], and if
you ever fly on United Airlines, you’ll hear it playing during the
preflight safety videos
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I’ve spent nearly two decades researching
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and writing
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about this piece
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me, “Rhapsody” isn’t some static composition stuck in the past;
rather, it’s a continuously evolving piece of music whose meaning
has changed over time.

Programming “Rhapsody” for concerts today has become somewhat of a
double-edged sword. A century after it premiered, it remains a crowd
favorite – and almost always guarantees a sold-out show. But more
and more scholars are starting to see the work as a whitewashed
version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene.

A cobbled-together hit

Whiteman commissioned Gershwin to write “Rhapsody” sometime in
late 1923. But as the story goes, the composer forgot about his
assignment until he read about the upcoming concert in a newspaper
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on Jan. 4, 1924.

Gershwin had to work quickly, writing as time allowed in his busy
schedule. Manuscript evidence suggests
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that he only worked on the piece a total of 10 days over the span of
several weeks.

[Handwritten sheet music.]
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A copy of the first page of George Gershwin’s manuscript for
‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ Gabriel Hackett/Archive Photos/Getty Images
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Accordingly, he relied on the familiar melodies, harmonies, rhythms
and musical structures that had started to garner him acclaim as a
popular composer for the Broadway stage. This music was increasingly
influenced by early jazz, as the improvised, syncopated and
blues-infused sound of Black musicians such as Louis Armstrong
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New Orleans. Gershwin also mingled with, and was influenced by, some
of the great Harlem stride pianists of the day, including James P.
Johnson [[link removed]] and Willie
“The Lion” Smith [[link removed]].

Despite being quickly cobbled together, “Rhapsody in Blue”
ultimately sold hundreds of thousands of records and copies of sheet
music
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Gershwin’s own performances of the work on tour also helped boost
its popularity.

But success also opened up the piece to criticism – particularly
that Gershwin had appropriated Black music.

Black musicians feel snubbed

This is not only a 21st-century critique by music historians. Even
back then, some Black artists were miffed.

But rather than calling it out in print, they did so through their own
art.

In 1929, blues artist Bessie Smith starred in a short film called
“St. Louis Blues [[link removed]],” based
on the song of the same name by composer W.C. Handy
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including members of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
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Hall Johnson Choir
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Instrumental and vocal versions of Handy’s song provide the sonic
backdrop for this 15-minute film – with one very pointed exception.

Smith plays the part of Bessie, an unrequited lover to a duplicitous
gambler named Jimmy. In the final scene, after a previous falling out,
Jimmy and Bessie reconcile in a club. They embrace on the dance floor
to the strains of “St. Louis Blues.”

But unbeknownst to the love-struck Bessie, Jimmy carefully picks her
pocket and unmercifully shoves her back to her bar stool. After Jimmy
flashes his newly acquired bankroll, the opening clarinet glissando of
“Rhapsody in Blue” begins. During this brief, 20-second cue
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boastfully backs out of the club, bowing and tipping his hat like a
performer acknowledging his ovation.

The short film ‘St. Louis Blues’ takes a subtle dig at Gershwin 14
minutes in.

It’s hard not to see the subtext of introducing Gershwin’s famous
piece at this moment: Just as Jimmy has robbed Bessie, the film
suggests that Gershwin had pilfered jazz from the Black community.

Another musical response to “Rhapsody” emerged in 1927 from
Gershwin’s stride pianist friend, James P. Johnson: “Yamekraw
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Bradford billed the work
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as “not a ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ but a Rhapsody in Black and White
(Black notes on White paper).”

Of course, the “black notes” were more than just the score itself.
Johnson demonstrates how a Black musician would approach the rhapsody
genre [[link removed]].

Stuck in the middle with ‘Blue’

Gershwin once described “Rhapsody” “as a sort of musical
kaleidoscope of America – of our vast melting pot
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The problem with the “melting pot” metaphor is that it asks
immigrants to leave behind cultural practices and identities in order
to assimilate into the majority population.

And that’s just what Whiteman’s musical experiment at Aeolian Hall
a century ago was all about: He sought, as he put it, to “make a
lady out of jazz
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As the concert’s program read
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“Mr. Whiteman intends to point out, with the assistance of his
orchestra and associates, the tremendous strides which have been made
in popular music from the day of the discordant Jazz … to the really
melodious music of today.”

In other words, he wanted to fold the era’s popular jazz music into
classical music – and, in doing so, draw out the inherent beauty in
the beast, making it more acceptable to white audiences.

“Rhapsody in Blue” and other classical-jazz hybrid works like it
would soon become known as “middlebrow” music
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This fraught term emerges from the space between the so-called
“lowbrow” and “highbrow,” descriptors that locate works of art
on a scale from pedestrian to intellectual. These terms originally
related to the pseudoscience of phrenology
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which drew conclusions about intelligence based on skull shape and the
location of the ridge of one’s brow line.

Highbrow music, made by and for white people, was considered the most
sophisticated.

But highbrow music could also conveniently elevate lowbrow music by
borrowing – or rather, appropriating – musical elements such as
rhythm and harmony. Merging the two, the low gets to the middle. But
it could never get to the top on its own terms.

If Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” is meant to be heard as a “musical
kaleidoscope of America,” it is important to remember who’s
holding the lens, what music gets added to the mix, and how it has
changed once admitted.

But it’s also important to remember that 100 years is a long time.
What the culture values, and why, inevitably changes. The same is true
for “Rhapsody in Blue.”[The Conversation]

Ryan Raul Bañagale
[[link removed]],
Associate Professor and Chair of Music, _Colorado College
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This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
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* Music
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* cultural appropriation
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* Jazz
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* race
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* George Gershwin
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