George Gershwin had an enormous influence on American popular culture, both directly, through his music, and indirectly through the circle of artists which formed around him and his brother Ira in New York and in Hollywood. This circle had a formal center in the ongoing open-house salon presided over by Ira's wife Lenore. Not only was their home a social center, a gathering place for artists the Gershwins admired -- and not just musical artists -- but Lenore (called Lee by her friends) was a kind of fixer, a matchmaker for artistic collaborations of all sorts.
In his autobiography, Vincente Minnelli -- seen above, with Arthur Freed at the piano -- tells how he was adopted by the Gershwins when he started to make a name for himself as a designer of shows at Radio City Music Hall. In time, Lee would put him together with the Schuberts, who were looking for a classy designer and director for one of their productions. That was how Minnelli made the jump to Broadway. Arthur Freed, who lured Minnelli to Hollywood, had also been part of the Gershwin crowd from his earliest days as a songwriter.
George Gershwin inspired several generations of artists who wanted to elevate the standards of American popular art. Gershwin had made the jump from Tin Pan Alley to the concert hall, from Broadway musicals to a new kind of American opera -- he offered proof that horizons could be expanded, that popular art could be art of the highest order.
[Image © Al Hirschfeld]
Even Gershwin's mainstream commercial work attracted the best of the best. Consider the opening night of Girl Crazy on Broadway, in 1930. This was one of George and Ira's most popular Broadway musicals, with a program of songs that still dazzles the imagination -- everything from "I Got Rhythm" to "Embraceable You." Ginger Rogers became a star that night, singing the latter song. Fred Astaire had been called in on an informal basis to offer some help with one of Rogers's dances -- the first time the two had worked together. Rogers would of course go on with Astaire, a close friend of George's, to expand the expressive range of the Hollywood musical, of American popular dance, in unprecedented ways. (Ethel Merman became a star at this premiere, too, singing "I Got Rhythm", though one can't quite claim for her the same sort of influence on American popular culture.)
In the pit orchestra that night, Roger Edens sat at the piano. He would later become Judy Garland's principal arranger and vocal coach at MGM, turning her from a kid novelty act ("the little girl with the great big voice") into one of the most brilliant interpreters of American popular song. Edens would end up serving as Arthur Freed's right-hand man in the Freed Unit at MGM, helping to create a series of movie musicals that revolutionized the form. Edens, working in various capacities, often uncredited, was the man most responsible for the high musical standards set by the Freed films.
Also playing in the pit that night were Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman (above, some years later), Jack Teagarden and Gene Krupa -- a virtual who's who of the big band swing movement that would soon sweep the nation. George Gershwin himself conducted the ensemble.
In truth, it's hard to find important figures in American popular art from the 1930s through the 1950s who didn't number at one time, in some capacity, among the Gershwin crowd. One could almost go so far as to say that if a bomb had gone off in the Alvin Theater on 14 October 1930, leveling the place just before the curtain went up on Girl Crazy, America would be a very different country than it is today. And this begs the question of what American culture might have been if George Gershwin hadn't died of a brain tumor in 1937, at the age of 38.
After George's death, Ira and Lee's home in Hollywood continued to be a haven for creative types -- mostly members of the old New York gang who'd come west. When Minnelli, Freed and Edens made An American In Paris in 1952, they were still trying to live up to the standards set by George Gershwin, to honor and do justice to his legacy. Almost every musician who worked on the film argued over whether or not the new arrangements of the Gershwin songs captured the spirit of George's work. They were all still members in good standing of the Gershwin crowd.