Books about Gershwin from Amazon.com

Praise for Rob Kapilow

"Kapilow gets audiences in tune with classical music at a deeper and more immediate level than many of them thought possible."
--Los Angeles Times

"Rob Kapilow is awfully good at what he does. We need him."
--The Boston Globe

"A wonderful guy who brings music alive!"
--Katie Couric

"Rob Kapilow leaps into the void dividing music analysis from appreciation and fills it with exhilarating details and sensations."
--The New York Times

"You could practically see the light bulbs going on above people's heads. . . . The audience could decipher the music in a new, deeper way. It was the total opposite of passive listening."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Price: $14.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An American in Paris * Bidin' My Time * By Strauss * Embraceable You * Funny Face * Isn't It a Pity * I Got Rhythm * In the Mandarin's Orchid Garden * Maybe * M y Cousin in Milwaukee * Slap That Bass * Swanee * They All Laughed * Love Is Sweeping the Country * High Hat and many more.  .
Price: $13.77 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This comprehensive biography of George Gershwin (1898-1937) unravels the myths surrounding one of America's most celebrated composers and establishes the enduring value of his music. Gershwin created some of the most beloved music of the twentieth century and, along with Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter, helped make the golden age of Broadway golden. Howard Pollack draws from a wealth of sketches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, books, articles, recordings, films, and other materials--including a large cache of Gershwin scores discovered in a Warner Brothers warehouse in 1982--to create an expansive chronicle of Gershwin's meteoric rise to fame. He also traces Gershwin's powerful presence that, even today, extends from Broadway, jazz clubs, and film scores to symphony halls and opera houses.
Pollack's lively narrative describes Gershwin's family, childhood, and education; his early career as a pianist; his friendships and romantic life; his relation to various musical trends; his writings on music; his working methods; and his tragic death at the age of 38. Unlike Kern, Berlin, and Porter, who mostly worked within the confines of Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin actively sought to cross the boundaries between high and low, and wrote works that crossed over into a realm where art music, jazz, and Broadway met and merged. The author surveys Gershwin's entire oeuvre, from his first surviving compositions to the melodies that his brother and principal collaborator, Ira Gershwin, lyricized after his death. Pollack concludes with an exploration of the performances and critical reception of Gershwin's music over the years, from his time to ours..
Price: $21.72 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Summertime
and the livin' is easy,
Fish are jumpin',
and the cotton is high...

Nothing captures the feelings of summer better than the much-loved song from Porgy and Bess, "Summertime." Its majestic imagery and deep spirituality touch listeners today as they have for generations. Now, with acclaimed illustrator Mike Wimmer's lush oil paintings depicting a family's routine one summer day earlier in this century, an American classic takes on a whole new meaning. Including the score of the song, Summertime is both a gentle book for family sharing and a lavish gift to be treasured.

...there's a nothin'
can harm you
With Daddy and Mama
standin' by..
Price: $3.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Includes KR-A-ZY for You * I Can't Be Bothered Now * Bidin' My Time * Things Are Looking Up * Could You Use Me? * Shall We Dance? * Someone to Watch Over Me * Slap That Bass * Embraceable You * Tonight's the Night * I Got Rhythm * Stiff Upper Lip * They Can't Take That Away From Me * But Not For Me * Nice Work If You Can Get It..
Price: $11.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A comprehensive collection of 39 of George & Ira's best, including: Fascinating Rhythm · How Long Has This Been Going On · I Got Rhythm · Let's Call the Whole Thing Off · Love Walked In · Nice Work If You Can Get It · 'S Wonderful · Someone to Watch Over Me · Strike Up the Band · They Can't Take That Away From Me · and more..
Price: $10.47 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Piano Level 3-4. George Gershwin’s three most famous preludes demonstrate his genius for piano writing, and portray a variety of styles. Prelude I exudes energetic syncopation, Prelude II is a lyric blues with an ostinato-like accompaniment, and Prelude III closes this set brilliantly with rugged rhythms and exciting syncopations..
Price: $5.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From Irving Berlin to Cy Coleman, from “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to “Big Spender,” from Tin Pan Alley to the MGM soundstages, the Golden Age of the American song embodied all that was cool, sexy, and sophisticated in popular culture. For four glittering decades, geniuses like Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen ran their fingers over piano keys, enticing unforgettable melodies out of thin air. Critically acclaimed writer Wilfrid Sheed uncovered the legends, mingled with the greats, and gossiped with the insiders. Now he’s crafted a dazzling, authoritative history of the era that “tripled the world’s total supply of singable tunes.”

It began when immigrants in New York’s Lower East Side heard black jazz and blues–and it surged into an artistic torrent nothing short of miraculous. Broke but eager, Izzy Baline transformed himself into Irving Berlin, married an heiress, and embarked on a string of hits from “Always” to “Cheek to Cheek.” Berlin’s spiritual godson George Gershwin, in his brief but incandescent career, straddled Tin Pan Alley and Carnegie Hall, charming everyone in his orbit. Possessed of a world-class ego, Gershwin was also generous, exciting, and utterly original. Half a century later, Gershwin love songs like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “The Man I Love,” and “Love Is Here to Stay” are as tender and moving as ever.
Sheed also illuminates the unique gifts of the great jazz songsters Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington, conjuring up the circumstances of their creativity and bringing back the thrill of what it was like to hear “Georgia on My Mind” or “Mood Indigo” for the first time. The Golden Age of song sparked creative breakthroughs in both Broadway musicals and splashy Hollywood extravaganzas. Sheed vividly recounts how Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer spread the melodic wealth to stage and screen.

Popular music was, writes Sheed, “far and away our greatest contribution to the world’s art supply in the so-called American Century.” Sheed hung out with some of the great artists while they were still writing–and better than anyone, he knows great music, its shimmer, bite, and exuberance. Sparkling with wit, insight, and the grace notes of wonderful songs, The House That George Built is a heartfelt, intensely personal portrait of an unforgettable era.

A delightfully charming, funny, and most illuminating portrait of songwriters and the Golden Age of American Popular Song. Mr. Sheed’s carefully chosen depictions and anecdotes recapture that amazingly creative period, a moment in time in which I was so fortunate to be surrounded by all that magic.”
–Margaret Whiting.
Price: $12.68 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Presents a biography of George Gershwin.
Price: $3.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]