Pete's Picks Dept. - Gorgeous George

I found [writes Pete] the book Gershwin A Biography by Edward Jablonski in a free box not long ago and realized how little I knew about him. The education has been an absolute joy. And there are even some recordings of the great man, who was a much more accomplished pianist than I knew, as well as a mainstay of Broadway (usually writing with lyrics by his brother Ira, sometimes to my delight PG Wodehouse).

Gershwin also had classical ambitions and kept trying, up till well after he was both rich and famous, to apprentice himself to “real composers,” who generally warned him off, on the grounds that (as Ravel said) making him write bad “Ravel” would damage his great gift of melody and spontaneity. The renowned Parisian Nadia Boulanger turned him down as a student on the grounds that there was nothing she could teach him. He still caught some shit from the old school (too much “jazz”) but whaddyagonnado?

To the music, partly informed by Jablonski & the Internet (notably Allmusic), partly because this was what I could easily get my hands on, sometimes at lowish mp3 rates. Feel free to offer additions! First off, Piano Rolls, a recording mechanism of the early 20th century, many examples of which survive but need work to translate effectively to modern technology. Then more of George, a whole host of great singers who were his contemporaries (he died in 1937 at the sickeningly early age of 38; what did we all miss?), and three moderns, if we can still call Willie modern.