ALGIS VALIUNAS: American Idol

...TodayhehasmovedbacktotheUnitedStatesfrom hisself-exileinItalyandspendsmuchofhistimereading Montaigne and meditating on mortality...

...To betheworld'sfattestskinnymanisnotaninsignificant distinction,afterall...

...Vidal intended it as an allusion to the tricks that memory playsonautobiographers,butthetitlehehasgiventhis, his second memoir, is a more down-to-earth description of the 82-year-old memory he must now depend upon...

...Some stride pianists even claimed, dubiously, to have instructedthegormlessyoungGershwinin"styling,"and others ludicrously accused him of plagiarizing "I Got Rhythm" from William Grant Still, or of purchasing "Summertime" from Fats Waller for a couple bottles of gin...

...Gershwinwasdisinclinedtoattributehissuccessto intensive training--he preferred to play the untutored genius role--but in fact his education in classical performanceandcompositionwasrigorousandprolonged, most of it with private teachers...

...In George Gershwin: His Life and Work, Howard Pollack, professor of music at the University of Houston and previous biographer of Aaron Copland and John Alden Carpenter, has examinedhissubject'saccomplishmentsandreputationwith admirable industry and thoughtfulness, and has raised the important questions about Gershwin's rightful standing in the American pantheon...

...Gershwinproudlyregardedhimselfasmoreserious than American high-art composers generally gave him credit for, and he believed that his chosen musical language penetrated the American character as deeply as any great art did...

...His father tried many trades, from shoemaker to bookmaker to cigarstoreowner,andbecamequiteprosperousasproprietorofachainofbakeries.Georgegrewupmostlyon the hardscrabble Lower East Side...

...InSickness andInHealth SHOOT IF YOU MUST THIS OLD GRAY HEAD, but spare yourcountry'senfantterrible.GoreVidal--expat liberal elitist, name-dropper extraordinaire, snidest of the snide, unabashed advocate of male lovedecades before America even knew what "gay" meant, haswrittenhisfinalmemoir,andIlovedit...

...Despite the occasional earnest revival, these have largely vanished from the scene--for good reason, to judge from Pollack's plot summaries--and Pollack's diligence in tracking down particulars of performance history and critical reception is unlikely to excite anyone but a few scholars...

...As popular music goes, it is pretty serious stuff...

...What makes this memoir different from anything he has ever written is his unsentimental yet heartrendingaccountofthehorrendousfinalillnessof his companion of 53 years, Howard Auster, and his B O O K SI NR E V I E W M A R C H 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 7 1 Florence King's collections include The Florence King Reader,STET,Damnit!:TheMisanthrope'sCorner,1991 to2002,and,mostrecently,DejaReviews:FlorenceKing AllOverAgain.Thelastreprintsherreviewof Palimpsest, Mr.Vidal'searliermemoir.Point To Point Navigation: A Memoir By Gore Vidal (DOUBLEDAY, 277 PAGES, $26) Reviewed by Florence King...

...In the concert pieces, and especially in Rhapsody, Gershwin conceives an America self-enveloped by exhilarating urban turbulence, so that the individual native voice acquires its peculiarinflectionsbyattendingtothehoots,clangs,and wailingsofuntrammeledmassdynamism.Thisisacelebrationofcitifiedenergy,ofgo-getterismenthralledby the main chance...

...And Copland's Quiet City lies at the farthest remove from Gershwin's urban hubbub...

...Still, it is almost worth hacking one's way through the undergrowth to read of Gershwin's conducting a Broadway opening, attired "in the world's largest white tie and boutonniere," and having asswellatimeasanyoneinthehouse,singingalong,or evenwhistlingalong,withthechorus...

...Can a composerlikeGershwinbebothpopularandserious?If he is not really serious, how highly should we esteem him?Andifweesteemhimtoohighly,whataretheconsequencesoferodingdistinctionsofrankbetweenhigh and popular culture...

...Gershwin's opera is indeed an American masterpiece...

...If Vidal has seemed to harbor a patrician contempt for just about every "popular" leader and flavor-of-the-month pol, it isbecausehehadthegoodfortune,duringhisformative years,toknowandtoserveagiantamongmen...

...Gershwin was a booster with profound reservations, a portraitist of the American soul who feared that the portrait, for all his love of the subject, would inevitably be unflattering...

...As put by someone with less patience for clowning, the questions might run...

...in any case, musical comedy and operetta glowed alluringly in his mind, and Broadway beckoned like the Enchanted City...

...among homegrown operas, only Carlisle Floyd's Susannah,whichowesagreatdealtoGershwin'sexample,isofcomparablepower.YetMussorgskyorWagner it is not, and efforts to talk it up as a world-historical achievementonlystrainthecredibilityofitslegitimate claimstoexcellence...

...What Gershwin wrote was not jazz exactly, but it was a close relation that spoke of the same delectable crassness...

...Why not sing, why not whistle, why not chase skirt andplaythepianoatpartiesandpalaroundwithshowbiz andhighartisticroyaltyandspreadjoywhereveryougo...

...Gershwin was an undeniable genius of sorts, and we should admire and delight in his art for what it is, not make claims for it that cannot rightly be sustained...

...At the keyboard Gershwin was a joyous whirlwind and a soulful dreamer, l'allegroandilpenserosoallinone,amazing in his elan and sensitivity...

...We are not all business or all romance, but a combination of the two, and real Americanmusicshouldrepresentthesetwocharacteristics which I tried to unite in `Swanee' and make represent thesoulofthiscountry...

...He further viewed jazz as basically a matter of national temperament, as in this 1925 statement: "Europeans cannotwritejazz;itbelongspeculiarlytoAmerica...

...In World War II he served as first mate of an Army freight-supply ship based in the Aleutian Islands, where the weather was so coldthatthecompassesoftenfroze, making it necessary to rely on memorized landmarks, a process knownas"pointtopointnavigation"inwhichthenavigatorproceedswithoutradarandhopesforthebest...

...Another Gershwin dame, Kay Swift, remarked his "joyous delight in whatever he wasdoing...

...one admirer called him "the only pianist I ever heard who could make a piano laugh, really laugh," but melancholy wistfulnesswasalsoeverybithisforte...

...Porgy's champions, Pollack among them (he devotes 100 pages to the opera), have emphasized its variegatedmusicalsophistication,andlikenedittoBoris Godunov and Carmen and Die Meistersinger--comparisonsthatGershwinhimselfmade,notunfavorably...

...The composer and writer Ned Rorem, in his essay "Living with Gershwin," describesEllaFitzgerald'sgatheringtherosesofsomefifty Gershwin tunes into "a bouquet of melody that evokes, overandoverandover,yourownfirstlove.Forthesongs are virtually always about love--lost, found, longed for, disposed of--never about death...

...For Gershwin the piano was the musical equivalent of Ritalin: "I was a changed personsixmonthsafterItookitup...

...UnbuttonedjoywasaGershwinhallmark-though it was dogged by a recurrent melancholy that wasjustasmuchapartofhisnature...

...as serious music, it is obviously wanting...

...before long he was upending drinks andfumblingatthepiano.Doctorssuspectedsomepsychiatricdisturbance,andbythetimealumbarpuncture diagnosed a fulminating brain tumor, Gershwin was past saving...

...Detractors have maligned the opera as mere folk art or as a condescending white boy's misrepresentation of black sorrow and exaltation...

...When a prominent singer programmed a couple of Gershwin's own tunes for a Broadway gala--"There's More to theKissthantheX-X-X"and"You-ooJustYou"--themusic publisher T.B...

...Whatever I know about music, I've wrenched out for myself...

...At the peak of his success, Gershwin started getting headaches and smelling burning rubber...

...GeorgewasaregularJoeallright,bythestandardsofthestreets,excelling atstickballandroller-skating,andamusinghimselfwith arson,pettylarceny,andpublicurination;hisfatherpredictedGeorgewouldwindupabum.Thenwhenhewas ten, in the schoolyard at recess he heard an eight-yearold violin prodigy, Max Rosenzweig, playing Dvorak's Humoresque, and the tune transfixed him...

...In Saul Bellow's Herzog, the title character plays a game with his little daughter, asking her who is moreamazing:theworld'sfattestskinnymanor the skinniest fat man, the hairiest bald man or the baldesthairyman.Putinthiscomicalfashion,thequestionregardingGershwiniswhetheroneshouldcallhim our most serious popular composer or our most popular serious composer...

...ItisAmericanmusic,andnothingelse...

...In his music he represented, or imagined he represented, that familiar American idol, the self-made man, owing nothing to nobody: "There is no such thing as tradition for me...

...It was a large step up in the world: Gershwin's only duties were to write songs, for $35aweek.(GershwinwouldremainloyaltoHarmsand its affiliates, some of which became outlets specializing inGershwin,therestofhislife...

...Pollack argues cogently that while Gershwin absorbed many influences, his work was his own, and his pianismexhibited"somefusionofclassical,ragtime,and jazzpianoratherthanjazzorevenragtimeperse...

...Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern got their start in similar gigs...

...Pollack divides his 700-page book into sections on Life and Works, of which Works gets some 500 pages, thebulkdevotedtothemusicalcomedies,amongthem Strike Up the Band, Funny Face, Girl Crazy, Of Thee I Sing...

...Gershwin's skills as song plugger drew the admiration of black ragtime pianists, among them the Harlem stridevirtuosisuchasEubieBlake,JamesP.Johnson,and later Fats Waller, who styled themselves the aristocracy ofearlyjazz,superiortoNewOrleansjazzmenbecauseof their classical training, patchy though it may have been, and their connection with Tin Pan Alley and Broadway...

...Perhaps the greatest strength of Pollack's biography is hisdescriptionofthemusicalmilieuinwhichGershwin was formed...

...Unlike the love-swept songbook, and despitetheoccasionaleloquentpassageofpastoralsentimentality, the romance here is predominantly com-mercial, rich with the excitement of the common pursuit:Everyonewantswhateveryoneelsewants,andgoes afteritcatch-as-catch-can...

...Were it anyone else but Gore Vidal one could say that he has "mellowed," but he is still the master of the withering retort...

...Whether one agreeswithhisanswersisanothermatter...

...TINPANALLEYCOULDNOTholdGershwin:"Thepopular-song racket began to get definitely on my nerves....Ibegantorealizethatmymusicalambitions were slightly above popular song...

...Undying love songs-"Someone to Watch Over Me," "But Not for Me," "The Man I Love," "Embraceable You"--were the show-stopping numbers of musical comedies, and writing musical comedies (with his brother Ira honing the lyrics to antic perfection)wasGershwin'sfavoriteoccupation...

...Tin Pan Alley was Gershwin's taking-off place, a huge commercial enterprise driven largely by themiddleclass'sassertionofitsculturalworthiness,in makingitsownmusiconthepianointheparlor: B O O K SI NR E V I E W 6 8 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R M A R C H 2 0 0 7 Algis ValiunasisaliteraryjournalistlivinginFlorida...

...Romance became big business for Gershwin, as he learned to feed the soul of his country with the sweets, and the bittersweets, of love...

...To be modern in the native style was his chosen course: "My people are Americans...

...I had no parents to stand over me and encouragemeinthelittletunesthatIusedtomakeup.Noone everurgedmeonbytellingmethatMozartwasagreat composerwhenhewaseleven...

...although the family couldhaveaffordedtoliveinabetterneighborhood,his mother claimed her children would do better growingupamongthepoor,as"regularkids...

...Set in Charleston's black slum, Catfish Row, Porgy and Bess is the story of a cripple who takesinamurderer'ssluttishmistresswhennooneelse will, the love that grows between them, the murderer's return and his persistent erotic hold on Bess, Porgy's vengeance and jailing, Bess's flight to New York, and Porgy'spursuitofher,indefiancenotonlyofreasonbut of even the most desperate hope...

...Itwasawonderfullife,whileitlasted.GingerRogers,one ofthemanybeautiesGershwindated,rememberedgoing M A R C H 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 6 9 to a ball game with him in the California sunshine, whoopingtheirlungsout,wolfingdownhotdogs,getting mustard all over their faces...

...For the rest of Gershwin's music, however, Copland's reservations apply...

...Besides the voluminous songbook, his so-called classical concert pieces--Rhapsody in Blue (1924), ConcertoinF(1925),AnAmericaninParis(1927),whichadd uptolittlemorethananhourofmusicalltold--andhis opera, Porgy and Bess (1935), form the basis of Gershwin'sreputation.AndwhatheisknownforisthecreationofadistinctivelyAmericanidiom,jazzyatitsheart butfullyconversantwiththerefineddevicesofclassical composition,andspeakingtothepopularneedforselfdefinition, as achieved not by self-examination or even self-assertion,butratherbyyieldingtothepredominant energies of American modernity...

...He repeats previously published accounts of his birth and childhood in Washington, D.C., but interestingly,hisportraitofhisblindgrandfather,Sen.Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, is sharper now that he himself has reached the age of the old man for whom he acted as guide and reader...

...Yakov Gershvin was born in New York in 1898, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants...

...Porgy and Bess is serious well past the point that Copland will allow: It is a great work of art, almost certainly the finest musical work written by an American...

...He became highly aware of himself as a defining--perhaps the defining--American artistic voice...

...3, the music's stately pulse evokes the monumental serenity ofwideopenspaces,andonefeelsthesweetnessofsatisfiedyearningforgreatthings,whicharenottheprizes to be won in full-out metropolitan scrimmage, but the gifts of nature's bounty available to all...

...How slightly or howfaraboveTinPanAlleyhesethissightsdependson one's angle of view...

...The joy and the melancholyinhisnaturereflectedthishecticambivalence abouthisnativelandandhisall-Americanart...

...In 1919 Gershwin scored his first monster hit with "Swanee,"whichmadehisnameandmadehimrich.Of thesongGershwinobserved,"Iamhappytobetoldthat the romance of that land [the `Southland'] is felt in it, and that at the same time the spirit and energy of our United States is present...

...Potent influences from several musical genres and styles adhered to Gershwin,andheturnedthemalltohisownpurposes...

...Music consumed him...

...Hisfirstmemoir,whichtookhimfromhisbirthin 1925 to age 70, was called Palimpsest, and I panned it, sayingamongotherthingsthatthetitle"soundslikean arcane sexual practice involving an inflated condom that explodes like the Hindenburg in the tradesman's entrance of some hired Apollo, sending ecstasy and otherthingswashingoverMaitreVidal...

...After a mortifying one-night stand as a vaudeville pianist--Gershwin lost hisplaceinthemusic,wasrazzedbyoneofthecomedians,andquitwithoutcollectinghispay--hecaughtonas rehearsalpianistforaflashyFlorenzZiegfeldrevue,and began working his way up in the business...

...Helefthighschoolat15tobecomeasongpluggerforthe music publisher Remick, at $15 a week, playing company-owned tunes in the home office on Tin Pan Alley, and at theaters, stores, parades, often heading out on the road to Atlantic City...

...Although George had regarded young musicians as unspeakable girlish"Maggies,"nowhebefriendedMax,andstroveto outshine him at the piano...

...7 0 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R M A R C H 2 0 0 7 B O O K SI NR E V I E W NOWHERE ELSE in Gershwin's music are the joy and the sadness so overwhelming as in Porgy and Bess...

...He evoked such a lexicon not only, perhaps, to disarm his more genteel critics, but because such phrasesunderscoredoneofhiscentralconvictions: thatjazzreflectedAmericanlife,whichhesimilarlydescribedas"nervous,hurried,syncopated,ever accelerando, and slightly vulgar...

...AmericanIdol T George Gershwin: His Life and Work by Howard Pollack (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 884 PAGES, $39.95) Reviewed by Algis Valiunas B O O K SI NR E V I E W To satisfy an almost insatiable demand for music thatcouldbeplayedandsungathome,theAlleypublishedliterallymillionsofpiecesofsheetmusic,primarilysongsandpianopieces.Althoughthepriceof sheet music during this period ranged from about tentofortycents,asuccessfulsongcouldmaketens ofthousandsofdollars,whileasmashhitcouldreap a hundred thousand dollars or more simply from sales, without including royalties from theatrical performances,pianorolls,recordings,andeventuallyradioandthemotionpictures...

...Examining Gershwin's own descriptions of jazz, Pollack approaches the core of his musical thinking: Gershwinalsoconsistentlyandratherambivalently described jazz as "crude," "vulgar," "ugly," "noisy," "boisterous," full of "animal vigor" and "unthinking vitality," even associated with "evil...

...The end was another story...

...it basks in the Edward Hopper mode of lonesome reflection, though relieved of some of Hopper'sbleakness.Coplandbelievedhewasengagedinan altogether different enterprise from Gershwin, calling thefarmorewidelyacclaimedmusician"thebestcomposer of light music that America has yet had," and "seriousuptoapoint...

...IN HIS BRIEF SPELL, Gershwin made himself a formidable name, and he knew it...

...his parents startedcallinghimGeorgewhenhe was two years old, no doubt to his greatrelief,andhechangedhisown lastnamewhenhewas15andbeginning to publish songs...

...Instead of the eccentric character he seemed in Vidal's earlier writings, the stoic Gore, who served 30 years in the Senate, abstained on the Social Security vote, lived on his $15,000 salary, and was the firstandprobablythelastsenatorfromanoilstatetodie withoutafortune,emergesherealmostasaghostfrom the Early Roman Republic when virtue in its original sense of male honor reigned supreme...

...Yiddish musical theater, Gilbert and Sullivan, the Viennese confections of the (Hungarian-born) Franz Lehar and Emmerich Kalman,theAmericanoperettasofSigmundRomberg(also bywayofHungary)andRudolfFriml(aCzechbybirth), andtheinnovativemusicalcomediesofJeromeKernset thestandardforhisownefforts,andhebecamedecidedly a man of the silver-voiced stage...

...Harms took notice and made Gershwin a salaried staff composer...

...He died in Los Angeles after a five-hour operationtogougeoutthecancer.Hewas38...

...In Copland's Symphony No...

...My time is to-day...

...Actually "palimpsest" refers to a papyrus that has been written on before and scraped clean, leaving traces of the earlier writing showing through...

...but it also presents a question for American cultural historians...

...The sharpest contrast exists between Gershwin's music and Aaron Copland's best-known works, which represent the other leading strain in serious popular American music...