A Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin (1924) or Where we learn that maybe Woody Allen had a point, but not that point obviously

I'm taking a slightly different tack with this blog now, as of tomorrow I am taking a three week trip from New York to Texas and the contents of my Ipod will be a fairly constant companion- and to keep a record of my trip I'm hoping to blog each day with a song connected to the place I'm in or a song that has become part of my trip. I start in New York City, a city with a surfeit of songs. From the ridiculous (New York, New York), the inescapable (New York State of Mind) and the excellent (Rockaway Beach). They are all songs about the City, trying to capture something that is undeniably New York (It's vitality, it's opportunities etc...) but the piece of music I have chosen is OF New York. It's a product of it's teeming streets, and it's cavernous avenues. I'm not denying the fact that the song is now largely linked to New York due to it's role In Woody Allens "Manhattan" but Allen understood the piece. Gershwin was trying to capture the sound of New York in the 20's. The jazzy squeals and rolls were Gershwin looking North to Harlem and the booming Jazz scene. As much as Gershwin was the acceptable face of Jazz to 1920's US audiences he wasn't afraid to identify and pay homage to the influence of Black American music, but the odd shifts in tone see Gershwin looking East to Europe and the influence of Webern, and Shostakovich and Mahler. He took cues from the Avant-Garde European compositional movement and the piece captures that.

I love the piece because it captures New York:the influences from other parts of America and elsewhere, the busy, teeming nature of life in the city, the towering buildings (the clarinets seem to rise and rise above us). That's why Allen (the life-long Jazz fan) chose the piece, it speaks for New York in a way songs cannot, like the city itself it's possibilities are endless and as I sink into the back of a cab on my way from the airport tomorrow, there's only one song to listen to.

Further Viewing:

Manhattan (1979) Woody Allen