Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I. PORTRAITS OF THE ARTIST -- 1 Ira Gershwin: "In person, my brother was a good deal like his music" (1961) -- 2 Frances Gershwin Godowsky: "George Gershwin Was My Brother" (1962) -- 3 Kay Swift: "Did you ever feel that a composer resembled his music?" (ca. 1970) -- 4 Oscar Levant: "Variations on a Gershwin Theme" (1939) -- 5 Verna Arvey: "George Gershwin Through the Eyes of a Friend" (1948) -- 6 "Gershwin Bros." (1925) -- 7 Isaac Goldberg: "Childhood of a Composer" (1931) -- II. THE GROWING LIMELIGHT (1919-1924) -- 8 George Gershwin: Letter to Max Abramson (1918) -- 9 Dolly Dalrymple: "Pianist, Playing Role of Columbus, Makes Another American Discovery: Beryl Rubinstein Says This Country Possesses Genius Composer" (1922) -- 10 George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (February 18,1923) -- 11 "Whiteman Judges Named: Committee Will Decide 'What Is American Music'" (1924) -- 12 Paul Whiteman and Mary Margaret McBride: "An Experiment" (1926) -- 13 Olin Downes: "A Concert of Jazz" (1924) -- 14 Carl Van Vechten: Letter to George Gershwin (February 14,1924) -- 15 James Ross Moore: "The Gershwins in Britain" (1994) -- 16 Ira Gershwin: "Which Came First?" (1959) -- III. FAME AND FORTUNE (1924-1930) -- 17 Philip Furia: "Lady, Be Good!" (1996) -- 18 Ira Gershwin: Letter to Lou and Emily Paley (November 26,1924) -- 19 Alec Wilder: "That Certain Feeling" (1972) -- 20 Carl Van Vechten: "George Gershwin, An American Composer Who Is Writing Notable Music in the Jazz Idiom" (1925) -- 21 Samuel Chotzinoff: "New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall" (1925) -- 22 Lawrence Gilman: "Mr. George Gershwin Plays His New Jazz Concerto" (1925) -- 23 "Paul Whiteman Gives 'Vivid' Grand Opera -- Jazz Rhythms of Gershwin's '135th Street'" (1925) -- 24 George Gershwin: "Our New National Anthem" (1925).

25 George Gershwin: "Jazz Is the Voice of the American Soul" (1926) -- 26 George Gershwin: "Does Jazz Belong to Art?" (1926) -- 27 George Gershwin: "Mr. Gershwin Replies to Mr. Kramer" (1926) -- 28 Abbe Niles: "The Ewe Lamb of Widow Jazz" (1926) -- 29 Carleton Sprague Smith: "d'Alvarez-Gershwin Recital" (1927) -- 30 Allen Forte: "Someone to Watch Over Me" (1990) -- 31 "George Gershwin Accepts 100,000 Movietone Offer: Fox to Pay That Sum for Film Version of Musical Comedy-Composer Gets Bid of 50,000 for Rhapsody in Blue Rights" (1928) -- 32 George Gershwin: Letter to Mabel Schirmer (1928) -- 33 Deems Taylor: "An American in Paris: Narrative Guide" (1928) -- 34 Olin Downes: "Gershwin's New Score Acclaimed" (1928) -- 35 George Gershwin: "Fifty Years of American Music . . . Younger Composers, Freed from European Influences, Labor Toward Achieving a Distinctive American Musical Idiom" (1929) -- 36 George Gershwin: "The Composer in the Machine Age" (1930) -- 37 Mary Herron Dupree: " 'Jazz,' the Critics, and American Art Music in the 1920s" (1986) -- IV. MATURITY (1930-1935) -- 38 George Gershwin: "Making Music" (1930) -- 39 Robert Benchley: "Satire to Music" (1930) -- 40 John Harkins: "George Gershwin" (1932) -- 41 Arthur Ruhl: "Of Thee I Sing, Kaufman-Ryskind Musical Comedy Satire at the Music Box" (1931) -- 42 "A Music Master Talks of His Trials" (1932) -- 43 Catherine Parsons Smith: From William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions (2000) -- 44 Richard Crawford: "George Gershwin's 'I Got Rhythm' (1930)" (1993) -- 45 Allan Lincoln Langley: "The Gershwin Myth" (1932) -- 46 William Daly: "George Gershwin as Orchestrator" (1933) -- 47 Olin Downes: "George Gershwin Plays His Second Rhapsody for the First Time Here with Koussevitsky and Boston Orchestra" (1932) -- 48 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (June or July 1932).

49 Alexander Woollcott: "George the Ingenuous" (1933) -- 50 George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1934) -- 51 George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (1935) -- 52 Frederick Jacobi: "The Future of Gershwin" (1937) -- V. PORGY AND BESS -- 53 Joseph Swain: From 'America's Folk Opera" (1990) -- 54 George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, Selected Correspondence (1932-1934) -- 55 "George Gershwin Arrives to Plan Opera on Porgy" (1933) -- 56 Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes: "Porgy and Bess, Native Opera, Opens at the Alvin: Gershwin's Work Based on DuBose Heyward's Play" (1935) -- 57 George Gershwin: "Rhapsody in Catfish Row: Mr. Gershwin Tells the Origin and Scheme for His Music in That New Folk Opera Called 'Porgy and Bess' " (1935) -- 58 Todd Duncan: From an Interview by Robert Wyatt (1990) -- 59 Anne Brown: From an interview by Robert Wyatt (1995) -- VI. LAST YEARS: HOLLYWOOD (1936-1937) -- 60 Edith Garson: "Hollywood-An Ending" (1938) -- 61 Isabel Morse Jones: "Gershwin Analyzes Science of Rhythm"(1937) -- 62 Nanette Kutner: "Radio Pays a Debt" (1936) -- 63 Alec Wilder: "A Foggy Day" (1972) -- 64 George Gershwin: Letters to Zenna Hannenfeldt (1936) -- 65 George Gershwin: Letters to Mabel Schirmer (1936-1937) -- 66 George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1937) -- 67 George Gershwin: Letter to Henry Botkin (1937) -- 68 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937) -- 69 George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937) -- 70 George A. Pallay: Letter to Irene Gallagher (1937) -- VII. OBITUARIES AND EULOGIES -- 71 Report in Variety (1937) -- 72 Arnold Schoenberg: "George Gershwin" (1938) -- 73 Olin Downes: "Hail and Farewell: Career and Position of George Gershwin in American Music" (1937) -- 74 Irving Berlin: "Poem" (1938) -- 75 Jerome Kern: "Tribute" (1938) -- 76 "Gershwin Left 341,089 Estate to His Mother.

'Rhapsody in Blue' Appraised at 'Greatest Value' and Opera Rights of 'Nominal Interest' to the Residue" (1938) -- 77 Ira Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937) -- VIII. AS TIME PASSES -- 78 "Music by Slide Rule" (1944) -- 79 Ira Gershwin: "Gershwin on Gershwin" (1944) -- 80 Vernon Duke: "Gershwin, Schillinger, and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences" (1947) -- 81 Leonard Bernstein: "Why Don't You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?" (1955) -- 82 Duke Ellington: "George Gershwin" (1973) -- 83 Wayne Shirley: "George Gershwin: yes, the sounds as well as the tunes are his" (1998) -- Chronology -- Selected Bibliography -- Credits -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.