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 The remarkable partnership between George Gershwin and his older brother, Ira, was at the very center of the jazz age.
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    Gershwin, George (Sept. 26, 1898 - July 11, 1937), composer, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., the second son and second of four children of Morris and Rose (Bruskin) Gershvin. Originally Jacob Gershvin, he was always called George, and he entered the world of music as George Gershwin. His older brother, Ira, also went into music and wrote the lyrics for most of Gershwin's songs. Gershwin's parents had come to the United States from Russia in or about 1891, settling on the East Side of New York City, where they were married on July 21, 1895. The father soon opened a stationery store in Brooklyn and for the next few decades engaged in numerous business activities in New York, always in partnership with his brother-in-law, achieving a comfortable living.
George's childhood was spent mostly on New York's East Side, where he attended Public Schools 25 and 20, graduating from the latter in 1912. As a boy he participated in the favorite games of the city streets and, like his comrades, regarded anyone who studied music as a "Maggie." But there were times when he responded instinctively and sensitively to musical experiences. When he was about six he heard Anton Rubinstein's "Melody in F" played on an automatic piano in a penny arcade in Harlem. "The peculiar jumps in the melody held me rooted," he later recalled. On another occasion during this same period he happened to hear some jazz music outside the Baron Wilkins Club in Harlem, where Jim Europe and his band were performing. This was such an exciting experience for Gershwin that he henceforth made frequent trips to the club just to sit outside on the sidewalk and drink in the febrile musical sounds. The most significant musical experience of his early boyhood took place when he was ten. While playing ball outside P.S. 25, he heard the strains of violin music through a nearby open window. The performer was a fellow student named Maxie Rosenzweig, later famous on the concert stage as Max Rosen, and he was playing Dvorák's "Humoresque" in the school auditorium. Many years later Gershwin remembered his reaction: "It was, to me, a flashing revelation of beauty." He sought out Maxie Rosenzweig and became an intimate friend, and it was Maxie who introduced Gershwin to the world of serious music. His interest in music thus aroused, Gershwin started to experiment on a friend's piano. He played the popular tunes of the day and, before long, began inventing some of his own. The Gershwins acquired a piano in 1910, and George took lessons of several incompetent local teachers. In 1912 he found his first important teacher in Charles Hambitzer, a composer and pianist who initiated the boy into the great literature of music while firing him with his own enthusiasm. Hambitzer also had the perception to recognize latent talent. On his advice Gershwin took lessons in harmony from Edward Kilenyi and started attending concerts. He continued his music study at intermittent periods to the end of his life with various teachers, including Rubin Goldmark [q.v.], Henry Cowell, and Joseph Schillinger. Though Hambitzer had won him over to the classics, Gershwin did not abandon his enthusiasm for American popular music, and after a year and a half at the High School of Commerce in New York he left school to seek a job in Tin Pan Alley. In 1913 he was engaged as staff pianist for the music publishing firm of Remick at a salary of fifteen dollars a week. He now began writing popular songs in an uninterrupted stream. One of them, "When You Want 'Em You Can't Get 'Em," was published by Harry von Tilzer in 1916; another, "The Making of a Girl," appeared in a Broadway stage production, "The Passing Show of 1916." A song plugger who heard him practising Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" in his cubicle at Remick's once inquired: "George, are you studying to be a concert pianist?" Gershwin replied soberly: "No. I'm studying to be a great popular-song composer." Photo credit: George Gershwin. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten collection, [Reproduction number: LC-USZ62-42534 DLC]) continue to page 2
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