Top-rated comment: "Jesus, did Gershwin kill this guy's dog? What's next: a screed on how The Beatles 'Love Me Do' has ossified harmonica playing and kept serious jazz harmonica players with classical chops from bringing to the fore the instrument's atonal properties? I'm not sure what the writer hates more: that Rhapsody is so popular or so much fun."
January 27, 2024
"Despite all this, and regardless of whether 'Rhapsody in Blue' is the worst masterpiece, it’s also the best cheesecake, or something else attractive yet unhealthy. "
The fourth-to-last sentence of "The Worst Masterpiece: ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ at 100/A jazz musician considers the legacy and unfulfilled promise of George Gershwin’s catchy — or you could say corny — repertory staple," by pianist, composer and writer Ethan Iverson, in the NYT.
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49 comments:
Somebody give that commenter a column.
I pulled up this guy's wiki, and the first thing I noticed is that he is a native Wisconsite. Born 1973, Menomonie.
Broadway is where high culture meets low culture. Maybe Aaron Copland is better.
United Airlines hardest hit.
I learned years ago that you do not have to like every classical composer. By analogy, you do not have to like every jazz composer either.
Guy has a serious limerant object projection problem with George Gershwin and possibly other classical composers.
Meanwhile, the NYT reaches new levels of weekend-cosmopolitan irrelevance. All the satisfaction of great reading, without the calories!
An American in Paris is underrated.
I think "Menomonie" is more mellifluous than "cellar door." And "mellifluous" may be better than either.
What version of RIB is he critiquing? Ferde Grofe' did the orchestration for the most commonly performed version IIRC.
(I guess I should say the great Ferde Grofe'.)
Gershwin did not fit neatly into the classical genre. But his music was brilliant, and so very American. Especially of the time, the era in which it was written and first performed.
Purists may scoff at Gershwin. I know people who hate Miles Davis, too. I don't get those people. But music is completely subjective. I'm going to the Symphony tonight to hear a mix of completely different music:
>Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro
>Kevin Put's Marimba Concerto
>Mahler's Symphony #1 (Titan)
These are all completely different pieces from completely different composers. And yet it'll be amazing to watch and hear all of it. As for someone sitting on the sidelines complaining about Rhapsody in Blue? Might as well complain about peanut butter and jelly, hot dogs, the Super Bowl, and "Cheers". All are part of Americana now. And there's no removing that.
I think it is spelled “Menominee”, which is in The UP in Michigan. Menominee Falls is in Wisconsin.
Sorry - there is a Menominie in WI.
"Rhapsody in Blue, musical composition by George Gershwin, known for its integration of jazz rhythms with classical music..." Brittanica
Rhapsody in Blue is a stew of little dittys that by themselves could have been made into compositions. It has a Buggs Bunny feel to it.
Maybe this critic is a purist.
We must tear down the “four olds”: old ideas, old customs, old habits and old culture.
Gershwin is immortal. Ethan Iverson is nobody.
"Rhapsody has two mommies."
Elites also hate low-brow, monochromatic Mexican street cuisine served at both ends of the bridge and throughout. Is this why they turned on the liberal Trump?
"I'm not sure what the writer hates more: that Rhapsody is so popular or so much fun."
Embrace the power of "and".
I read the article. In a perverse way, it engenders more appreciation of Gershwin than the standard adulatory fare. His angle of attack seems to be that Gershwin isn't the real deal. Ellington is the real deal. He doesn't actually come out and say it's cultural appropriation, but the thought is in the air. Oh, fuck off.
Well T.S. to this guy. I first heard Rhapsody in Blue when I was maybe 8 years old 20 years or more before this clown was born. I still enjoy the occasional playing of Rhapsody in Blue. Of course I also like Norteno, Banda, 50's country songs, and even a tango or so. So what's this guy's problem? Does he have the only ears in the world?
It's about time we took another look at Mozart. That Alla Turca is another bit of cultural appropriation and should be removed from the repertoire.....Mozart and Gershwin had good timing in both their music and their deaths. Always leave them wanting more. There's something haunting about their early deaths. They left behind a lot of good stuff, but you can't help but mourn all the masterpieces never written......Jim Morrison died at an appropriate age, but Amy Winehouse died much too young. She left just a sliver of herself behind. If Dylan had died in that motorcycle accident, he would have become a mythic figure but missed out on his Nobel Prize.
J Severs said...
I learned years ago that you do not have to like every classical composer.
Word. I don't get too far out of the baroque and never understood the rhapsody (heh) with which people treat Mendelssohn. Gershwin leaves me rather Meh, although better than Copland, save for Fanfare.
Every few years I try to get into jazz, but it never lasts, although I just 'discovered' Dave Brubeck and have that Pandora station going sometimes.
Jason and the Scorchers are the great American music ensemble. Jason and Warner are doing a benefit for Jeff Johnson tonight. Jeff had a stroke and is back in Tennessee.
Just in case anybody knows who they are and want to reach out to Jeff.
Gershwin really is low-tier jazz music. Or is it classical? Its a hybrid. But So what?
There's a sort of music critic who always writes for the MSM that dislikes whatever is popular. Y'see the same thing in film criticism. Anything extremly popular has to be sneered at. Especially if its old.
I love Rhapsody in Blue- I listen to it about 2-3 times a year on Youtube- there is always a new performance of it to sample. I also like the Piano Concerto in F, though not as much. One hundred years from now, people will still remember Rhapsody in Blue and George Gershwin. No one will remember Iverson.
Learning to do the schmear at the beginning was a rite of passage of my youth, but once you get the hang of it (and the right reed) it's kind of fun.
Not liking this thing is like hating chocolate. You're allowed to hate it, but we don't understand and probably never will. It's fun and it's exactly the right length for what it is.
I like his Piano Concerto even more, but most people are the other way around.
Let them eat wagyu beef.
I’ve been watching a 4 part bio of Willie Nelson on Roku/Paramount. Finished ep 3 of 4 last night. Excellent and highly recommended.
One of the interesting stories in ep 3 is how he became buddies with Booker T and decided that he wanted Booker T to produce an album of standards.
He had been having great success with his outlaw albums and the record company (Columbia?) wanted more of that. They told him that nobody listened to the standards he wanted to do (Stardust, Georgia on my mind, Moonlight in Vermont and others). They said it was crap music,
Willie said it was great music and great music is great music whether in or out of fashion. He also said it would be his next album either that year or 10 years later. It was Willie Nelson so of course they let him make it. More to humor him than in expectation of anything particularly worthwhile, I think.
The Stardust album turned out to be his biggest seller spending more than 10 years in the Billboard top 100 albums.
Of the half dozen Willie Nelson albums on my phone, it is my favorite. Esp Moonlight in Vermont and Scarlet Ribbons. All the rest, too.
I think Willie’s point, and to get back on topic for this post, is listen to what you like and pay no attention to anyone else.
John Henry
I have a couple of Gershwin albums on my phone. Just cued up Rhapsody and will listen to it on the way home.
John Henry
First listened to Rhapsody 45 years on because my winds teacher played the intro on his clarinet. Was captivated, and played a 33 a lot. I think I liked that it was American. But it also led me to the rest of classical music. Car radio still set to KUSC.
I don't see why you're giving this the "cultural appropriation" tag. This piece is about the sounds and emotions of New York City in the 1920s and Gershwin was from New York.
Think he wrote it in a couple weeks - under pressure.
Pretty good considering the legs it's had.
The columnist missed the real point that would have broadly resonated: Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was a prime example of White Supremacy by taking the jazz idiom and doing his whitey grey-meat Jew thing with it.
- Krumhorn
John Henry
I love The Great Divide; all of the songs.
Willie sings Gershwin tracks. Didn’t know this album existed.
No. Title Length
1. "But Not for Me" 3:16
2. "Somebody Loves Me" 2:14
3. "Someone to Watch Over Me" 4:05
4. "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off (featuring Cyndi Lauper)" 3:06
5. "It Ain't Necessarily So" 4:28
6. "I Got Rhythm" 2:47
7. "Love Is Here to Stay" 3:23
8. "They All Laughed" 2:44
9. "Embraceable You (featuring Sheryl Crow)" 3:38
10. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" 2:54
11. "Summertime"
Untalented hack no wonder he hates gershwin
Of course the German Nazis hated Gershwin because he was Jewish. Hmmmm...
Jazz mavens have turned it into self-indulgent morass of boring nonsense. I remember a group of us at Seattle convention, a decade or so ago, walked a block or two to the local jazz club. It was awful, but we still bought their liquor, which, added to what had already drunk (Maker's Mark and Woodford, on the rocks, no cheap booze or foo-foo drinks for us), fed our ability to mock the music and the people playing it. It reached a height of ridiculous when the trumpet player started blowing his mouthpiece into the big floor fan cooling the stage. On the other hand, we met up in Chicago and roamed the Jazz/Blues clubs on Halstead St (as I recall) and had a splendid time. The musicians were locked in and the skinny (heroin diet likely) singers were on fire.
Unless you're the artistic scion of a wealthy family that will get a position regardless of the degree, a Jazz major is a terrible idea, as except for a few its only good for tens of dollars.
The 200th anniversary of the debut of Beethoven's 9th is coming up in a few months. I expect similar yapping by mediocre musicians about its familiarity and middlebrow appeal.
Meanwhile, orchestras that want to sell tickets will continue to schedule both the 9th and the RiB.
My take is the Rhapsody in Blue is popular, therefore it is unartistic and awful.
Such is the cattiness of artists.
"Art Majors: Making Middle School Girls Seem Stable and Rational.
"No one will remember Iverson"
Vey few remember him now. i had to look him up. At first, I thought you were refering to Ives.
I assume Copeland is still being sneered at. "Applachian Spring" "billy the Kid" "clarinet Concerto" were dismissed as "too commericial" at the time, but very popular with the average concert goer.
It's nothing new. Gershwin went on tour in 1934 with an orchestra, and played Rhapsody in Minneapolis. The newspaper critic found it tired and dated, a relic of another era that lacked the sophistication of the present day. I guess he preferred the antiseptic dissonance of something modern, and found the hey-there-good-lookin' opening clarinet glissando too common.
“I think "Menomonie" is more mellifluous than "cellar door." “
The legend was told to me from the Menominee on down of the small lake they call lake Mendota.
I had an English prof who said that Chevrolet Coupes was the penultimate expression as Chevrolay cupay.
Too many letters, too many words, makes everyone get all uppity. Need to go back to the old Saxon, before the upstart Normans.
I've been to Menomenee WI several times.
It is internationally famous for its School of Packaging
Very pleasant town.
But cold. -15 in February when I was last there.
John Henry
I just reviewed a disc by cellist Alban Gerhardt and the Alliage Quintet -- four saxes and a pianist -- that includes a performance of RiB. The opening glissando went to the cellist!
A mathematician says, "I hate three times five. It's so ... ordinary. Give me a good differential equation instead."
Everybody is an elitist about something.
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