Homage to Gershwin (the second movement from “Anecdotes and Reflections”) for violin, cello,  piano and clarinet

Hello —

Yesterday, September 26, was George Gershwin’s birthday.  Born in 1898, he died too soon, just 39 years old, in 1937.  He gave us a great deal, but he had so much more to give.  We could have anticipated symphonies, a violin concerto, chamber music, choral music, more operas.  It’s heart-breaking.

My mother, who played the piano beautifully (far better than I ever have), often played a solo piano version of his Rhapsody in Blue.  She told us about Gershwin, how much she admired him, how he had devised his own Blues/jazz-derived “sound” and that he had died too young.  He could easily have still been alive and active when I was a boy in the fifties and sixties.  Copland, his contemporary, was with us until 1990.

My mother got me started writing music.  She showed me how to build a melody out of repeated sequences, showed me chords, harmonies, the basics of music theory and music notation.  My public school music teachers showed me the way forward from there.

When I started coming up with tunes of my own, some of them naturally sounded a little Gershwin-esque.  It wasn’t difficult.  For a facile imitation of Gershwin, all you have to do is flat the seventh.  Voila:  the “Blues” sound.  My mom was proud of me and I thought my tunes were pretty hot stuff.  Looking back, they seem to me to be ideas Gershwin might have toyed with and then filed away, to be developed later on.  Maybe.

Much later, in 1989, when I was 39, as old as Gershwin was when he died, I wrote a lengthy musical portrait of America entitled “Anecdotes and Reflections.”  The second movement is my homage to Gershwin; it expands and improves some of those wannabe-Gershwin tunes I had written in my teens.

But the movement’s first tune, heard right after the introduction, is one that had come to me about a year before.  It just rose up out of nowhere when I was lullabye-ing our little boy, Chappy.

When I hear it now, it takes me back to those precious moments when I stood over his crib, softly singing, to a Blues-y tune of my own making, “Go to sleep, my Chappy boy, go to sleep my ba-ay-by.”  That’s all.  Just those words, over and over, with every phrase of the melody.

Chap grew up loving music, especially Swing, early Jazz, Blues, and later Reggae, Rockabilly and much more.  Today Chapman is 30, a superb trombonist, has toured America and Europe with various bands and co-founded The Hot Magnolias, Cincinnati’s own traditional New Orleans jazz band (their terrific second CD came out a month ago and they played their 102nd gig last night).

Was I planting the seeds of his future as I sang him to sleep with that tune?

To hear the Mirecourt Trio (violinist Ken Goldsmith, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen) and clarinetist Craig Olzenak's sensitive rendition of my Homage to Gershwin (the second movement from “Anecdotes and Reflections”), click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/gershwin_homage.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/gershwin_homage.pdf

I'd love to know what you think about this music; reply if you're inclined.  But please don't feel that you are expected to reply.  I'm just glad to share my work in this way.

As always, feel free to forward this message to friends who might enjoy it.

Anyone can be on my little list of recipients for these mpFrees (as I call these musical emails).  To sign up, people should email me at rick@sowash.com, sending just one word:  "Yes."   I'll know what it means.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Sep. 27, 2015
www.sowash.com
photo:   http://www.sowash.com/press/Sowash_Publicity_2015.jpg