S'Wonderful, S'Marvelous . . . S'Gershwin.Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard CALL HIM CRAZY, but straight-ahead jazz Straight-ahead jazz is a term used to refer to a widely accepted style of jazz music playing that can be thought of as roughly encompassing the period between bebop and the 1960s styles of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. pianist Dick Hyman Dick Hyman (born March 8, 1927, New York City) is an American jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer best known for his versatility with jazz piano styles. Over a 50 year career he has functioned as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and, increasingly, as composer. is now into - are you sitting down? - smooth jazz This article has multiple issues: * Its quality may be compromised by peacock terms. * Its neutrality is disputed. * It needs additional references or sources for verification. . Roger that: smooth jazz, with its looping melodies, syrupy textures and repetitive rhythms. Why, the notion of the great Dick Hyman, a jazz hall of famer, playing ear candy ear candy n. Informal Light popular music considered to be pleasing. like that is enough to make any jazz purist's head spin. As for Hyman himself, he admits this venture "may well offend everybody." Could well be. Although Hyman's excursion into smooth jazz isn't likely to knock the Earth out of orbit, it is shocking to a jazz community that reveres him as one of the most multifaceted jazz stylists of all time. The purists must be wondering, "How could he possibly turn to smooth jazz? Why would he? What the ...' Not to worry. It's all a big (musical) joke to Hyman. Except that he's gone a little soft on the subject. "I started out with the intent of skewering and parodying this kind of music," Hyman says by phone from his home in Hoboken, N.J. "Then, as I went along, I couldn't help but get interested in the possibilities. `So, this is turning out more interesting than I thought it would be.' Listeners will be able to judge for themselves, when Hyman introduces 11 of his new smooth jazz arrangements of George Gershwin tunes, caressed by a saxophone- and guitar-driven combo, at the Oregon Festival of American Music Oregon Festival of American Music is an eclectic, thematically-based two-week summer music festival that has been held annually in Eugene, Oregon since 1992. Produced by The John G. on Aug. 8. Hyman realizes he is venturing way out on a limb with this concept, but he's getting a kick out of it anyway. "The smooth jazz people possibly may accept it better than the Gershwin people," he predicts. The idea of the sublimely inventive Hyman plying his trade in the repetitive landscape of smooth jazz shouldn't surprise anyone who has followed his career. Hyman's flying fingers probably have tried every stylistic innovation of the past half century. Besides, the Aug. 8 concert program perfectly fits the festival's theme, "Gershwin Transformations." Shoehorning Shoehorning is a ploy alleged by skeptics to be used by psychics as a way to make it sound like their prophecies or those of earlier prophets had come true. The process involves taking an earlier prophecy and attempting to affix a current event to it, with the event apparently Gershwin's harmonically complex tunes - among them "Love Is Here to Stay," "Love Walked In," "Embraceable You," "Somebody Loves Me," "A Foggy Day," "Lady, Be Good," "But Not for Me" and "Someone to Watch Over Me Someone to Watch over Me may refer to: In television:
"The fun for me was to reduce that rich vocabulary to something equivalent," he says, `then see whether I could keep the songs intact with the same points of tension and release, but without using any of the basic harmonization har·mo·nize v. har·mo·nized, har·mo·niz·ing, har·mo·niz·es v.tr. 1. To bring or come into agreement or harmony. See Synonyms at agree. 2. Music To provide harmony for (a melody). .' Now that Hyman's done it, he's not sure what he has accomplished. But he believes the arrangements might find a following - if he decides to record them. The notion of Dick Hyman's music being played on smooth jazz radio stations leaves even him shaking his head. "Wouldn't that be funny?" he asks, rhetorically. The changling Doing Gershwin's music in a smooth jazz vein is just one of the ways the pre-eminent American composer will be celebrated during the 11th annual two-week summer music festival that opens Thursday. James Ralph James Trevor Ralph (born 9 October, 1975) is an English cricketer who played one first-class match for Worcestershire and later played minor counties cricket for Shropshire. He was born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire. , the festival's executive director, says there is so much Gershwin music - he composed more than 500 songs and did scores for 56 stage or film musicals - it could "easily fill a 10-day festival in a varied, entertaining and enlightening fashion. When you add a deliberate focus on (his lyricist lyr·i·cist n. A writer of song lyrics. Also called lyrist. Noun 1. lyricist - a person who writes the words for songs lyrist brother) Ira as well, ... I just wish we had another week." Ralph is an unabashed Gershwin fan. The first Oregon Festival of American Music centered on Gershwin, and the composer has popped up numerous times in festival-sponsored concerts over the years. "He was a genius, no doubt," Ralph says. "And that genius cut broadly across many strands of music. That is what was so unusual about him; he was so extraordinarily broad. `What other American composer could so comfortably move from musical theater to jazz to the concert hall?" And what other American composer has had so much of his music universally accepted and instantly recognized? Is it any wonder that United Airlines used "Rhapsody in Blue
For the Farscape episode of the same name, see . Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines " for years as its theme, H&R Block tried to convince clients to view its services as "Someone to Watch Over Me" and Visa hammered out "I Got Rhythm" to promote its bank card. Commercials aren't the only places to hear Gershwin's music. Motion pictures use it constantly, as witness "Mr. Holland's Opus" (`Someone to Watch Over Me') and "When Harry Met Sally" (`But Not for Me," "Our Love Is Here to Stay'). Gershwin is also box office boffo bof·fo Slang adj. Extremely successful; great. n. pl. bof·fos See boff1. [Alteration of boff1.] Adj. 1. in orchestral circles, appearing regularly on pops, symphonic and operatic (`Porgy porgy (pôr`gē), common name for members of the Sparidae, a family of small-mouthed fishes with strong teeth adapted for crushing their food of shellfish and crustaceans. and Bess') programs. Gershwin scholar Edward Jablonski notes that Gershwin made a point of being "an American composer. Jazz was an American music, and so whatever he felt was in the music he based his own writing on. `And apparently, the wonderful structures that he made, real jazz Real Jazz is the name of an XM Satellite Radio's Traditional Jazz music channel. The program director is Maxx Myrick. The channel bills itself as "Swinging From Coast To Coast". musicians loved also." Indeed, jazz artists have written countless tunes based just on the harmonic progressions in "I Got Rhythm." "Just think that before him there was no chord sequence to `I Got Rhythm,' which now there's been thousands of jazz tunes written around those chords, let alone all the people just playing that song," jazz saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Ken Peplowski Ken Peplowski (b. May 23, 1959) is a jazz clarinetist born in Cleveland, Ohio, known primarily for playing in the swing music idiom. He is sometimes compared to Benny Goodman in terms of tone and virtuosity. says by phone from a concert date in Stockholm. "When anybody studies jazz, the first thing the teacher tells them is, `You got to learn the blues; you got to learn the `I Got Rhythm' changes.' ' Gershwin (Sept. 8, 1898-July 11, 1937) was born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, N.Y. Because of his older brother Ira's interest in music, the family bought a piano. George taught himself how to play by ear. Taking Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley Genre of U.S. popular music that arose in New York in the late 19th century. The name was coined by the songwriter Monroe Rosenfeld as the byname of the street on which the industry was based—28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway in the early Gershwin was only a teen-ager when he began his professional career in Tin Pan Alley, where he worked as a "song plugger" for others while writing his own material on the side. At 19, he had his first big hit, "Swanee," popularized by Al Jolson. He went on to supply songs to many Broadway musical revues. Bandleader Paul Whiteman Paul Whiteman (March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967) was a popular American orchestral leader. He was born in Denver, Colorado. After a start as a classical violinist and violist, Whiteman then led a jazz-influenced dance band, which became locally popular in San Francisco, heard Gershwin's music and asked him to write something for him. However, Gershwin soon forgot about the request. About three weeks before the concert, Gershwin saw a poster promoting the event and went into overdrive. In less than three weeks, he wrote "Rhapsody in Blue," a signature work that virtually has become an alternate national anthem. Music seemed to pour out of Gershwin, who delighted his friends by playing his latest tunes on the piano at parties. "On the recordings by Gershwin," concert pianist William Wolfram wolfram: see tungsten. says by phone from his home in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. , "he sounds fantastic on this stuff - especially the rhythmic stuff. I love the way he does that. `He sort of bats it out with tremendous abandon and force, and it sounds just perfect." Many of Gershwin's songs have become a staple of the American Songbook: "Fascinating Rhythm," "The Man I Love," "Liza," "S'Wonderful," "I've Got a Crush on You," "Strike Up the Band" and "Summertime" to mention just a few. "All of his songs stand out because they are so harmonically different from the others," Peplowski says. "You can never stop exploring music like that, because there's always new things to find there and new ways to play them." The success of "Rhapsody in Blue" led Gershwin to write other serious pieces, such as Concerto in F, Preludes for Piano and "An American in Paris
An American in Paris is a symphonic composition by American composer George Gershwin, composed in 1928. ." Hollywood beckoned Gershwin in the 1930s. He and Ira wrote for motion pictures such as "The King of Jazz," "Delicious," "Girl Crazy" and "Shall We Dance," many starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Tunes from this period included "They Can't Take That Away "They Can’t Take That Away" is a single by New Zealand Idol season one winner, Benjamin Lummis, released in 2004. It went to number one in its first week, where it remained for seven weeks. From Me," `They All Laughed' and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Crazy for the stage Many of those songs turn up in the new musical "Crazy for You," which Willamette Repertory Theatre founder Kirk Boyd is directing for the festival. "You could spend an evening with each song (in the musical), because they're compelling as all get-out," Boyd says. Suddenly, in 1937, the music ended. Gershwin developed a brain tumor Brain Tumor Definition A brain tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue in the brain. Unlike other tumors, brain tumors spread by local extension and rarely metastasize (spread) outside the brain. ; he died during emergency surgery. He left an astonishing a·ston·ish tr.v. as·ton·ished, as·ton·ish·ing, as·ton·ish·es To fill with sudden wonder or amazement. See Synonyms at surprise. musical library that conductor James Paul, the festival's classical music director, never tires of revisiting, in the same way that he enjoys rereading "Moby Dick" or the tales of Homer. "They're classics," Paul says by phone from Chicago, where he had a concert engagement. "A number of Gershwin's scores have become touchstones." Dick Hyman, the festival's jazz adviser, asserts that Gershwin's music is "the quintessence quin·tes·sence n. 1. The pure, highly concentrated essence of a thing. 2. The purest or most typical instance: the quintessence of evil. 3. of the American contribution to the arts, and his success the very embodiment of the American Dream." On a more emotional level, the festival's James Ralph expresses what so many listeners feel about Gershwin. "I listen to his music and it almost always makes my heart leap." Arts reporter Fred Crafts can be reached by phone at 338-2575 and by e-mail at fcrafts@guardnet.com. GERSHWIN TRANSFORMATIONS WHAT: Music by George Gershwin will be performed by jazz and classical musicians and actors WHEN: Thursday through Aug. 10 WHERE: The Shedd, 868 High St.; Hult Center, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street; Cuthbert Amphitheater, Day Island Road; EMU ballroom, 1222 E. 13th Ave.; Town Club, 975 Oak St. HOW MUCH: $14 to $57.50 through the Hult Center box office, 682-5000 GUARDLINE: To hear examples of Gershwin's music, call GuardLine at 485-2000 from a touch-tone phone and request category 3733 CAPTION(S): INSIDE Two productions set Gershwin's songs in their natural setting: the stage / 5G There's no such thing as a free lunch, but there are many events for those who can't spare a dime / 4G To help you plan, a festival calendar / 4G -- |
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