Chapter 8: Broadway and Musical Theater
George Gershwin is one of the few American composers who successfully combined popular music and classical composition with both exceptional musical skill and widespread commercial success. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1898, Gershwin began his musical career as a song plugger, a pianist hired to promote and demonstrate new sheet music for Tin Pan Alley publishers. By the age of fifteen, he had left high school to work full-time in the music industry, and by twenty-one, he had written his first major hit, “Swanee,” which became a national sensation after being recorded and performed by Al Jolson.
Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Gershwin composed hundreds of songs for revues, vaudeville shows, and eventually book musicals, many in collaboration with his older brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin (1896–1983). The brothers' creative partnership produced some of the most iconic songs in the American songbook, including “The Man I Love” (1924), “Strike Up the Band” (1927), “Embraceable You” (1928), and “I Got Rhythm” (1930).
“I Got Rhythm,” in particular, exemplifies a popular songwriting structure known as 32-bar AABA form, which became standard in Broadway and Tin Pan Alley songwriting. In this form, each section (A or B) is eight measures long:
A – introduces the main melody
A – repeats the melody
B – introduces contrast (often a shift in harmony or mood
A – returns to the original theme
The 32-bar AABA song form became a defining structure of Broadway musicals in the 1920s and 1930s. Its predictable pattern gave audiences a familiar framework, while composers and lyricists introduced variations to keep songs engaging. This form provided a satisfying sense of unity and return, even as the middle “B” section offered contrast in mood and theme. The song “I Got Rhythm” notably popularized this form and went on to influence jazz musicians, who adopted its chord progression (known as “Rhythm Changes”) as the basis for countless improvisations and new compositions.
While Gershwin continued to compose for Broadway throughout his life, his ambitions extended into the classical music world. His breakthrough came in 1924 with the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, a groundbreaking work that blended jazz idioms with classical form and orchestration. The piece was commissioned by Paul Whiteman, the popular bandleader, for a concert intended to elevate jazz as an art form. Gershwin composed the piece in a matter of weeks, and its debut, with Gershwin himself at the piano, was a sensation.
Rhapsody in Blue opens with one of the most iconic gestures in American music: a slow, swooping clarinet glissando—a continuous slide between two notes—that immediately signaled something new was happening in American concert halls. The work combined jazzy syncopations, bluesy harmonies, and orchestral grandeur, demonstrating that American jazz and popular music could hold their own in a classical setting. This success launched Gershwin’s parallel career as a composer of symphonic and theatrical works and helped legitimize jazz-influenced music in the eyes of the classical establishment.
Gershwin’s most ambitious work came near the end of his life: the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), created in collaboration with Ira Gershwin and author DuBose Heyward. Set in the African American community of Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, the opera masterfully fused classical structures with jazz, blues, and spirituals. Although its initial reception was mixed, Porgy and Bess has since been celebrated as a milestone in American opera and remains a vital part of Gershwin’s enduring legacy. The opera’s iconic song “Summertime” has become a beloved standard, covered by a diverse range of artists, including jazz great Miles Davis and the psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, fronted by Janis Joplin.
Tragically, Gershwin died at the young age of 38 in 1937 from a brain tumor, cutting short a career that had already reshaped American music. His ability to combine sophistication with accessibility, and his deep respect for both popular and classical traditions, made him one of the most important and enduring voices in 20th-century American culture.