"Who is George Gershwin?"  I had about five seconds to answer that question posed by a Nigerian friend in the lobby of my building on the way out the door to the concert.  "America's greatest composer," I explained as I passed.  "Of both popular and serious music.  The first to inject African rhythms into the European musical tradition."  "Yeah, but all the best parts came from the African music," teased another friend-- an African- American! -- later, as we set out our blankets and assorted outdoor concert tackle in the park.  "You're saying the classical string section of Rhapsody in Blue is not one of the 'best parts'?"  "Okay, okay," my friend conceded.  "Africans didn't play violins."  "But -- " I, in turn, was quick to acknowledge on behalf of all white Europeans everywhere, "clearly some serious outside assistance was required for Westerners to be able to make any rhythm which could be described as 'facinatin'". 

Thus, even in trying to talk about Gershwin's music, we fall into the give- and-take of ebony and ivory, so nicely symbolized in our favorite composer's characteristic tinkle between black and white key, or that sly, half-step tweak up or down on the clarinet or trombone.

Gershwin's music is sly in a knowing sense that "out-knows" the usual New York cynicism, which slides so easily into decadence. Rather, the music and lyrics by the brothers Gershwin is both warm and chaste -- like a fairy tale.  One early reviewer called George "the prince who has taken Cinderella" -- that is, jazz -- "by the hand and openly proclaimed her a princess to the astonished world."  George Gershwin played a brand of jazz that wallows in the freedom, but not the seamy, side of the genre: it's not "lite" music, either -- but pure romance, which turns out to be anything but bubblegum.  Gershwin's brand of jazz is upbeat, yet not without the marks of a firing in the furnace of "the blues".

The first Gershwin music I ever ran across was a battered old vinyl LP featuring a brassy band about on the level of a K-Tel instrumental (featuring "the Sound Effects"...)-- but it was enough.  I was into Big Band swing at the time, or so I thought.  But this chance find was like someone who had known only instant coffee blundering into a grande cappuccino.  I soon found better renditions of the songs on that record, which, of course, led me to more songs on more records and the understanding that a particular singer or conductor makes all difference.  Eventually, my quest for perfect renditions of each tune has led me now well into my second dozen of Gershwin CDs.

In the park, as the orchestra tuned up for their concert, my friend recalled the oft-told story of how Gershwin, when "merely" a successful Tin Pan Alley songplugger, visited French composer Maurice Ravel.  The young American was there to ask for lessons by a master in the composition of "serious" music.  Ravel was aghast, replying there could only be just one George Gershwin and fulfilling that calling should be honor enough for any man.  I've independently confirmed that observation.  Inspired by my chance discovery of Gershwin, I soon chased up and down Broadway to make sure I wasn't missing anything.  Irving Berlin, I found, is catchy, but not as deep, at least not as often.  Cole Porter is smart but naughty and if you scratch you'll reach a layer of despair.  And lots of people like Jerome Kern, but the only song of his I ever remember is the truly unforgettable "Ol Man River".

Gershwin music then, is truly singular, though composed much of the time in the plural.  Ira, George's brother and lyricist, was not a sibling tag-a-long, but a lifelong student of meter and language.  Like his brother, Ira was a playful and inventive juggler of rhythm and accent -- though in Ira's case you must add "rhyme" to that list of balls in the air.  And we must not forget (though sadly many do) to include DuBose Heyward, who with his wife Dorothy wrote the original novel and play, along with much of the lyrics, for George and Ira's opera, Porgy and Bess.

One reason the name Gershwin is in the news lately is because last September 26th marked the centennial of the composer's birth.  And a hundred years after George Gershwin was born, I found myself turning the very age he was when he died: thirty- eight -- a depressing thought on two counts.  One, I am conscious that the body of work I leave behind as of this date won't have anybody celebrating my centennial.  But an even greater loss to the world, I suspect, are the works which George's own untimely death of a brain tumor left unwritten.  He had sketched in his head -- but not written down -- themes for a Hebraic opera and a string quartet, and also was planning to write a symphony.  One can't help but wonder of the effect on Gershwin the Jewish artist of the Holocaust, of the creation of Israel -- or the effect on Gershwin the innovator of the rise of rock and roll.  It's easy to picture old George Gershwin in his 70s, shocking the music establishment still, only this time with a new piece of music that bears the influence of the Beatles or even Jimi Hendrix.

Oh, the "might-have-beens".  But like a Gershwin tune with its swirl of blues and joy, the happy ending is the music we do have.

This particular evening we came to experience the Concerto in F, the performance of which the local music critic will call lackluster, but I will have been happy just to have made to hear in one piece.  My last effort to get downtown to hear Gershwin in Grant Park ended in a notorious crash on the bike path -- both me and the other guy were unhurt, but my bike was totaled.  I walked home and ate my cheese and crackers and drank my sparkling grape juice fuming in a chair to the recorded sounds of Rhapsody in Blue.  Tonight's picnic basket is not nearly so picturesque.  The best I have managed to throw together for the Concerto in F is a box of pretzels, Little Debbie bars and Dr. Pepper, with fruit juice for all the kids -- which include mine and a wild assortment of friends.  I can't help but notice the kids are making way too much noise for a concert, even in the park, so I close my eyes and pretend they're all with somebody else.  And I find myself drifting along with a cool breeze and the concerto into the key of F, opening my eyes to watch the falls of Buckingham Fountain descend with the same airy grace as the music.

Inevitably, I recall the strangest Gershwin concert I ever attended, a private recital in the kitchen of Satanist Anton LaVey, who nearly made me forget the occasion of our visit (an interview) as we talked about George and Ira and he played tunes on request on his set of stacked Casio keyboards.  At that time, I hadn't become nearly as familiar as I am now with Porgy and Bess, or else I would have compared LaVey in the published interview with a character from that particular story -- "Sportin' Life," the seducer and skeptic who sings an invitation to backsliding and doubt in the song "It Ain't Necessarily So."

Yet such skepticism is clearly a pose for the composer of those lyrics, as well as the composer of the music behind them, whether they even realized it or not.  For skepticism is swept aside by the thundering power of Porgy's own breathtaking faith as he goes looking for his beloved but erring Bess at the end of the story. The skeptic is likewise answered at the beginning of the opera, in the witness and power of the song, "Summertime"

When I hear those lines, I feel like risin' up here and now. Then again, that raises the age old question: will there be "the blues" in heaven?  And now that you mention it, wasn't jazz -- long before rock-and-roll arrived, the original "devil's music"?

In J.R.R. Tolkien's creation myth in The Silmarillion, Iluvator, the Creator, composes a beautiful piece of music to be sung into the infinite, empty Void by the Ainur, "the Holy Ones" -- the angels, I suppose, or the Middle-Earth equivalent.  The mightiest of these is Melkor who, playing an all-too-familiar role, rewrites the tune himself, with a part featuring himself -- and the result is discord.  Yet whenever Melkor introduces a new discordant note, Iluvator weaves it into his composition, declaring "no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite."  In case you're trying to anticipate where I'm going with this, let me say right off that telling this story is not an effort to identify white European or African music with either God or Satan's songs, but to suggest that even "the blues" -- not the musical genre, but the experiences of suffering and sin, the source of the blues -- may be woven into songs of holiness, hope, and worship.

I've had to ponder such things this past year as I've watched a steady stream of television or movie depictions of slavery. First there was Steven Spielberg's Amistad, where the horrible imagery of the slaves' journey across the ocean was brought to life so unforgettably.  Then there was the PBS series on the history of slavery in this country, Africans in America, followed almost immediately by a Masterpiece Theatre series, "A Respectable Trade," the story of a group of slaves in England. The last mentioned included a line from one character who ruefully prophecies that the cruelty of slavery "will poison us forever".  And so, sometimes, it seems it has.  On the other hand, I shudder to think of what American music and culture would be without the introduction of African rhythms and way of seeing.

And even as I enjoy African contributions to Western culture, I am mindful of how often those contributions have not so much been received with gratitude but co-opted by the white establishment - - a shameful tradition which seems to me to form a disturbing (if perhaps not entirely intentional) subtext of the musical Showboat.  Obviously, it is entirely possible, as my evening with Anton LaVey made particularly clear to me, that one might thrill to the tongues of angels -- and still live like the devil.

I've never gotten the feeling that the white Gerswhin approached the blues and jazz with anything but a deep respect for the fact that the music was born of the fruit of someone else's suffering. Of course, being Jewish, and Jewish in America, I think there was some special sympathy between this particular interpreter and his medium.

And when I, neither Jewish nor African American, approach blues-based forms, I'd like to be able to say I try to keep in mind such things, but the fact of the matter is I mostly just tap my feet and find my body contorting in all that gut-wrenching body-language we Caucasians had no idea how to speak until we met the blues, and we still don't do without a rather thick accent. (Of course, sometimes the accent is part of the charm!)

As I have stopped to consider the history involved in blues-based music, and George Gershwin's employment of it, and my enjoyment of it (and yes, those two words rhyme, but nearly so nice as Ira's pairing of employment and "girl and boyment" in "Nice Work If You Can Get It"), I've been mindful of Tolkien's Creation Myth -- especially the picture of Iluvator always able to effortlessly weave any discordant notes introducted by the evil Melkor into something beautiful.  John Sayles recent film Lone Star ended with a typical postmodern conclusion on the tragedies of American history with a defiant "F*** history" -- brave words, but ultimately despairing, and in the long run, no solution.  Iluvator's solution is much better: the past can't be forgotten or undone, but it can be redeemed.

Which brings me back to Gerswhin -- whose blues are not terminal, but clearly woven into a story in which the ending is full of hope.  To be sure, Cinderella didn't need the Prince to give her value.  Any fool could see she was always the best of the bunch. But something magical happens when Prince and Princess get together; somehow, marraige seems to be the prerequisite for "happily ever after."

And the centennial of his birth seems a fine time to recall that George Gershwin's music makes for a fine apologetic for the existence of magic, and even heaven, and the ultimate triumph of good.  Listen and you'll see: "It IS necessarily so."