It’s George Gershwin’s birthday! Here’s the funhouse dance sequence from “A Damsel in Distress” (1937) – Fred Astaire, George Burns, and Gracie Allen monkey around in a barrel, on a lazy susan, down a slide, and opposite their distorted reflections – including some rather Milhaud-like bitonality in the funhouse mirror dance!
Astaire had known Gershwin for years. He and his sister, Adele, headlined two Broadway musicals – “Lady Be Good!” (1924) and “Funny Face” (1927) – by George and his brother, Ira. Adele married in 1932 and retired from show business. Fred later starred not only in “A Damsel in Distress,” but also in the silver screen musical “Shall We Dance”(1937), both at least partially scored by Gershwin.
Here are a couple of fascinating documents, set down in 1926, of Fred and Adele singing with Gershwin at the piano.
Four months before the release of “A Damsel in Distress,” Gershwin died of a brain tumor at the age of 38. Reportedly, his last words were… “Fred Astaire.”
Today is the birthday of William Grant Still, the so-called “Dean of Afro-American composers.”
Still, who lived from 1895 to 1978, emerged from unlikely circumstances – born in Woodville, Mississippi, and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas – to become a major force in American music. Having abandoned a career in medicine for studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory in Boston, Still was a “first” in many regards.
His Symphony No. 1, the “Afro-American Symphony,” was the first written by a black composer to be performed by a major orchestra (the New York Philharmonic). He was the first to have been allowed the opportunity to conduct a major orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at the Hollywood Bowl). His opera, “Troubled Island,” became the first to be produced by a major company (the New York City Opera). Another of his operas, “A Bayou Legend,” was the first to be performed on national television (as recently as 1981). His works were performed internationally by the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and the Tokyo Philharmonic.
Perhaps the least likely pupil of Edgard Varèse, Still incorporated jazz and blues elements into his concert music. He cut his teeth writing arrangements for Paul Whiteman, W.C. Handy, and Artie Shaw. According to Eubie Blake, one of Still’s improvisations in the pit band during Blake’s revue “Shuffle Along” became the basis for Gershwin’s hit tune “I Got Rhythm.” Still didn’t appear to be bitter about the appropriation (which Blake conceded was probably inadvertent). In fact, Still and Gershwin remained on amicable terms and made it a point to attend performances of one another’s music.
I’m sure Gershwin would have been only too happy to have composed the second movement of Still’s Symphony No. 2, “Song of a New Race”:
Still’s Symphony No. 1 (the first of five) – better known as the “Afro-American Symphony” – is a personal favorite, as fresh and difficult to resist as Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet. For me, the first recording, with Karl Krueger conducting, is still the best.
Composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at the age of 88, and for the second time in two years, there are murmurs about an illegitimate child of George Gershwin. Deussen’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was exceptionally close with Gershwin, perhaps closer than the Gershwin estate would have liked.
For her part, Deussen never wished to exploit her possible kinship to promote her own music, so perhaps it’s a disservice to her memory to even mention it. I only do so, because still fresh in the memory is the death last year of Alan Gershwin, who always insisted he was George’s son.
Composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at the age of 88, and for the second time in two years, there are murmurs about an illegitimate child of George Gershwin. Deussen’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was exceptionally close with Gershwin, perhaps closer than the Gershwin estate would have liked.
For her part, Deussen never wished to exploit her possible kinship to promote her own music, so perhaps it’s a disservice to her memory to even mention it. I only do so, because still fresh in the memory is the death last year of Alan Gershwin, who always insisted he was George’s son.
Composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at the age of 88, and for the second time in two years, there are murmurs about an illegitimate child of George Gershwin. Deussen’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was exceptionally close with Gershwin, perhaps closer than the Gershwin estate would have liked.
For her part, Deussen never wished to exploit her possible kinship to promote her own music, so perhaps it’s a disservice to her memory to even mention it. I only do so, because still fresh in the memory is the death last year of Alan Gershwin, who always insisted he was George’s son.
