George gershwin cause of death

George gershwin education
George gershwin wife
Gershwin brothers

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The Jazz Age Meteor

George Gershwin, born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1898, was the second son of Russian immigrants. As a boy, George was anything but studious, and it came as a wonderful surprise to his family that he had secretly been learning to play the piano. In 1914, Gershwin left high school to work as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger and within three years, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em; When You Have ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em,” was published. Though this initial effort created little interest, “Swanee” (lyrics by Irving Caesar) — turned into a smash hit by Al Jolson in 1919 — brought Gershwin his first real fame.

In 1924, when George teamed up with his older brother Ira, “the Gershwins” became the dominant Broadway songwriters, creating infectious rhythm numbers and poignant ballads, fashioning the words to fit the melodies with a “glove-like” fidelity. This extraordinary combination created a succession of musical comedies, including LADY, BE GOOD! (1924), O

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George Gershwin

George Gershwin was born in New York City on September 26, 1898, as "Jacob Gershvin" - a child of a Russian immigrant whose original name was Gershovitz but adapted to the Americanized "Gershwin".

He grew up in New York City and his precocious talent for music started early on a piano bought for his older brother Ira. After attending New York City public schools, he dropped out of high school to become a musician. At the age of 16 he worked as a song plugger for a Tin Pan Alley publisher and soon after he was hired as the rehearsal pianist for a new musical Miss 1917 by Jerome Kern and Victor Herbert. By 1919, he had a huge hit song of his own, "Swanee" with a lyric by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson sang it in a show called Sinbad and the song took off, selling more than a million copies of sheet music and more than two million phonograph recordings. And from there on, he moved from success to success, producing a catalog of over a thousand songs, most of which have achieved status as standards in American Popular song.

In the early years of his career, Gershwin'

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Ira Gershwin

American lyricist (1896–1983)

Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century.^[1] With George, he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love", and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess.

The success the Gershwin brothers had with their collaborative works has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. His mastery of songwriting continued after George's early death in 1937. Ira wrote additional hit songs with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Harry Warren and Harold Arlen. His critically acclaimed 1959 book Lyrics on Several Occasions, an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is widely considered an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the