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A previous version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Music, Chicago, 2006. Thank you to Stephen Blum, Ellie Hisama, Howard Pollack, Sarah Vezina, and JSAM's anonymous readers for their helpful comments on previous drafts. This article is dedicated to Bill Finegan, who passed away on 4 June 2008 at the age of 91.
In his Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Concerto in F (1925), George Gershwin sought to represent the United States as a melting pot by combining stylistic elements that signified Americans of different races.1 More specifically, he made productive use of qualities commonly understood as "white" or "black": white bundled with ideas of "symphonic" and "classical" music, "Europe," "harmony," and "highbrow culture," and black with "jazz," "Africa," "rhythm," and "lowbrow entertainment." 2 A binary conception of separate white and black races, each connected to distinct musical tropes, was widely taken for granted in the 1920s in the United States, guiding the reception of Gershwin's compositions as "hybrids." The American conception of hybridity, with its racial background and overtones, is also implicit in the categorical terms applied to Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F, such as "symphonic jazz" and "highbrow jazz."3
Bill Finegan, who wrote for Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller before forming the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra with Eddie Sauter, arranged Rhapsody in Blue in 1942 (for Miller) and Concerto in F in 1952 (for the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra).4 As a kind of musical analysis, Finegan's treatments suggest that techniques central to popular forms were foundational to Gershwin's longer "highbrow" works. Finegan heard Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F as popular music rather than as exceptional "symphonic jazz" hybrids. However, categories of "classical music" and "jazz" continued to guide the reception of Finegan's arrangements, pointing to the persistent ideas about race embedded in Gershwin's pieces.
Gershwin, Jazz, and Race in the 1920s
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, premiered in 1924, is one of the most enduring and successful American compositions, and is primarily known today for its place in the repertoire of symphony and pops orchestras. However, Rhapsody in Blue has undergone many different arrangements since its inception. The commonly played full orchestra setting by Ferde Grofé is only one of...