[Dixielandjazz] Gershwin and the Whiteman Band.

[Rob McCallum]

Apparently Ravel thought enough of him to invite him to his birthday party!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ravel_Gershwin_Leide-Tedesco002.jpg

Personally, I think Gershwin's impact on music overall is of greater significance than Copland or Bernstein. It is really too bad that Gershwin passed away so young.

Cheers!
Rob McCallum



> Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:14:55 +0200
> From: marekboym at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Gershwin and the Whiteman Band.
> CC: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> To: solarjazz at hotmail.com
> 
> I have no answer to your "why?"
> But probably for the same reason for which Robert Service was not on
> the English Literature curriculum.  I took a course in modern American
> poetry, and I must admit I thoroughly disliked what we had studued.  A
> few years ago a friend mentioned Service's name and quoted from "The
> Call of the Yucon," and I've been hooked ever since.  Service
> committed an unpardonable crime - he actually MADE MONEY by writing
> poetry!  A similar thing happened to our satiricist Efrayim Kishon -
> he was enver admitted to the Writer's Union, even though his books
> were translated into innumerable languages and were included in
> literature curricula in Germany and Japan.  But he made money and
> became famous, so he was rejected by the powers that be.  Doean't it
> sound familiar?
> In my native Poland Gershwin was considered a serious composer, even
> though the only Gershwin composition of which I had heard there was
> "Rhapsody in Blue."
> Cheers
> 
> On 26 March 2012 22:26, M J (Mike) Logsdon <mjl at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > [Forwarded with permission.  (c) 2012 Steve Schwartz.]
> >
> > George Gershwin
> > Gershwin by Grofé – Original Orchestrations and Arrangements
> >
> > *  "I Got Rhythm" Variations*
> > *  Rhapsody in Blue*^
> > *  The Yankee Doodle Blues
> > *  The Yankee Doodle Blues (new acoustic recording)
> > *  That Certain Feeling
> > *  Somebody Loves Me
> > *  Sweet and Low-down
> > *  I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise
> > *  The Man I Love
> > *  Fascinating Rhythm^
> > *  Summertime*^
> >
> > *Lincoln Mayorga, piano
> > ^Al Gallodoro, alto sax, clarinet, & bass clarinet
> > Harmonie Ensemble/New York/Steven Richman
> > Harmonia Mundi HMU907492 Total Time: 54:46
> >
> > Summary for the Busy Executive: A handsome job all around.
> >
> > Undoubtedly in a critical minority (although I'm no critic), I consider
> > Gershwin one of the great Modern composers – certainly one of the greatest
> > American composers. He's had a tough road to critical acceptance. You can
> > spread the condescension toward him from the serious writers thick on a
> > bagel. Other than a prejudice toward pop styles and pop acceptance, I have
> > no idea why they take the attitude. A few heavyweights (Copland, Thomson,
> > and Bernstein) and a whole bunch of lightweights blackball him from the True
> > Composing Fraternity. I can say this: no music like Gershwin's existed
> > before him, and no music in his style of comparable quality has appeared
> > after him. Among all our concert composers, he is our Verdi: the serious
> > musician who penetrated the popular subconscious. Copland and Bernstein have
> > their mega-hits, of course, but how many people hum any part of Copland's
> > Piano Concerto or Bernstein's A Quiet Place? Non-classical music lovers know
> > arias from Porgy and Bess without realizing that these are indeed arias. Any
> > reasonably alert American knows at least something of Rhapsody in Blue and
> > American in Paris. Many have even seen the movies. Of all the things
> > Bernstein or Copland wrote, only West Side Story, Appalachian Spring, and
> > Rodeo are remotely comparable in their general impact. Furthermore, after
> > all these years, Gershwin remains one of our major pop songwriters and a
> > continuing nourishment for jazz musicians.
> >
> > In this latter role, Gershwin first made contact with bandleader Paul
> > Whiteman, erroneously known as "The King of Jazz." Whiteman fronted a dance
> > band whose music, grandiloquently puffed as "symphonic jazz" and in reality
> > "sweet jazz" at best, was nevertheless the most popular in the country.
> > Whiteman had a great influence on the future of American popular music,
> > promoting or discovering not only Gershwin but Bix Beiderbecke, Mildred
> > Bailey, Frankie Trumbauer, Jack Teagarden, Billie Holiday, and,
> > spectacularly, Bing Crosby. Because of his success, he had the pick of
> > publishers' catalogues and of arrangers. At various times, he used Grofé and
> > Fletcher Henderson (given the race barrier in music at the time,
> > surreptitiously), among others. Grofé, classically trained and oriented,
> > wasn't likely to give him jazz-based arrangements. Most of the songs here
> > ticker along to a "doo-wacka-doo" beat (a lot of banjo, by the way). "The
> > Man I Love" chart comes from 1938. Swing had supplanted that sort of beat,
> > but Whiteman didn't make the switch. Much of the Grofé arrangement seems to
> > me proto-Mantovani – a heavy emphasis on strings, "symphonic" instruments.
> > The "B" ("Maybe I shall meet him Sunday") section reverts to the Twenties
> > sweet style.
> >
> > One curiosity: the Harmonie Ensemble records two versions of "Yankee Doodle
> > Blues," an early Gershwin and one of his rare songs to lean obviously on the
> > blues. The first version gets all the great engineering Harmonia Mundi can
> > muster. The second was recorded acoustically, ie, into a giant horn. Other
> > than for their own amusement, I have no idea why they did this, except to
> > make me very grateful for modern sound. At least 80% of the texture and tone
> > disappears behind the "historical" curtain.
> >
> > The album scores a coup by featuring then-93-year-old Al Gallodoro, a former
> > Whiteman reed man. Sadly, Gallodoro died before the album's release.
> > Nevertheless, the document is a valuable one. Gallodoro gets to duet on
> > Gershwin's "Summertime" with pianist Lincoln Mayorga. This isn't the best
> > jazz "Summertime" I've ever heard. There's very little penetration or
> > re-thinking of the song (Milt Jackson and Miles Davis needn't look to their
> > laurels), but it is a solid job of straight-ahead improvisation.
> >
> > Grofé's most famous Gershwin arrangement are, of course, the original dance
> > band and later symphonic arrangements of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. In the
> > throes of tryouts for a Broadway show, Gershwin had forgotten his commitment
> > to Whiteman to provide a "jazz concerto" for Whiteman's "Experiment in
> > Modern Music" concert. Brother Ira saw a notice in the newspaper and alerted
> > Brother George. With a three-week deadline, Gershwin had no time to
> > orchestrate. He handed off pages to Grofé as he finished them. Even so, at
> > the premiere, Gershwin had to improvise large parts of the score featuring
> > solo piano. He cued Whiteman with a nod.
> >
> > However, this specific set of circumstances led to unintended consequences.
> > Rhapsody in Blue remains the only one of Gershwin's concert works that the
> > composer did not orchestrate, but from this arose the myth that Gershwin
> > couldn't orchestrate. Even Gershwin's own publishers have not used the
> > composer's own scoring. Since Gershwin's death, most people have not heard
> > the genuine concert Gershwin, and the arrangements lack the interest of the
> > originals. Now Grofé did well. Indeed, I consider his dance-band version of
> > the Rhapsody the best of the non-Gershwin orchestrations. Certainly Gershwin
> > never felt the need to go back. Fortunately, Gershwin scholarship has come a
> > long way toward establishing true texts, and labels have begun to record the
> > real thing. This album features Gershwin's original score to the "I Got
> > Rhythm" Variations. Gershwin wrote it for a nationwide tour with the Leo
> > Reisman dance band, so it's necessarily a lot leaner than the symphony
> > orchestra version, by one W. C. Schoenfeld. This particular bit of
> > faux-Gershwin's a good standard orchestration, but the problem with any of
> > these rewrites has been that Gershwin's orchestrations are far more sinewy,
> > clear, and interesting. I have no idea what went on in the publishers' minds
> > to allow tamperings that we would condemn for almost every other major
> > composer. This isn't, after all, Mahler re-orchestrating Beethoven or Weber.
> > These are journeymen tinkering with genius. It says a lot for Gershwin that
> > his music has succeeded despite such nonsense.
> >
> > The invention in the variations both impresses and surprises. From a
> > vigorous piano statement of the theme, we get, among other things, a section
> > where, in the composer's words, "the left hand doesn't know what the right
> > hand is doing," a "Chinese flute" variation where the piano imitates two
> > out-of-tune flutes, a bluesy saunter, and a socko finish. One falls in love
> > easily with (and hard for) this music. It gets inside you, especially into
> > your feet. If you don't tap your tootsies, check your pulse.
> >
> > The performances vary. The dance-band items are wonderful. I suspect the
> > Whiteman band guys would have dropped their jaws at how well Richman and the
> > Harmonie Ensemble do. The banjo player, Scott Kuney, tears off crisp
> > roulades of strums in eerily perfect time. He becomes one of the driving
> > rhythmic forces of the band. But he's not alone. Trumpets and violins in
> > particular stand out in their beauty and clarity. The concert works run into
> > problems. Again, Harmonie plays impeccably. The recording is superb; you can
> > hear the inner workings of the scores unlike just about any other account.
> > However, the interpretations come across as a little stodgy. The classic
> > accounts of Leonard Bernstein's Rhapsody and the Arthur Fiedler/Earl Wild "I
> > Got Rhythm" (in the Schoenfeld arrangement) don't get shoved aside. They
> > have the joy and the fire, the willingness to go all out, that these
> > readings, way too careful, lack.
> >
> > All that said, this is a superior disc – beautifully recorded, well-played,
> > attractively produced.
> >
> > Steve Schwartz
> >
> > Sent from my cOmputer
> >
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