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George GershwinBorn: September 6, 1898Died: July 11, 1937
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 6, 1898 and died on July 11, 1937 at the young age of 38 due to a malignant brain tumor. As an American composer and in his short life created music that most people in the western world can recognize. His music can be found in many films and on television and his compositions have been recorded by many well-known jazz singers. 
The name given him by his parents was Jacob Gershowitz and he was the second of four children. He became interested in music when he went to a violin recital at which his boyhood friend, Maxie Rosenzweig, was playing. There was something about the sound and the way his friend played that intrigued him. His family already had a piano, which his parents had bought to encourage his older brother, Ira, but it was George (Jacob) who wanted to learn how to play it.
After trying several piano teachers during the following two years, George was introduced to Charles Hambitzer who became a mentor to George, an association which lasted for the rest of his life. George learned piano technique and European classical traditions from Hambitzer. He was also encouraged to attend orchestral concerts. When George came home following these concerts he would try to play on the piano the music he had heard. 
When Gershwin was fifteen, he quit school and found a job as a "song plugger"for a publishing company located in New York's Tin Pan Alley. His first published song was titled "When You Want 'Em You Can't Get 'Em, When You've Got 'Em, You Don't Want 'Em". Gershwin was only 17 years old at that time and he received $5 for it, although he was promised much more. In 1917 his novelty rag "Rialto Ripples" was a commercial success and two years later he had a national hit with the song "Swanee". In 1916 he had started working for the Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls, which involved recording and arranging. While there he produced rolls under his own name as well as other assumed names. He also had a brief time in vaudeville.
In 1924, George and his older brother Ira, a lyricist, worked together on a musical comedy, "Lady Be Good". Two songs from that comedy became standards in music. They were "Fascinating Rhythm" and "Lady Be Good". In the following years they collaborated on other musical productions, and from one of them, "Girl Crazy" was the title, came the standards "I Got Rhythm" and "Of Thee I Sing". "Girl Crazy" was the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. 1924 was also the year in which George-Gershwin composed his first major classical work, "Rhapsody in Blue", which became his most popular work. 
Gershwin for a short time went to Paris, where he wanted to study composition with some of the prominent classical composers. However, when he applied to study with them, they turned him down because they were concerned it would ruin his jazz-influenced style. While he was in Paris, he wrote "An American In Paris", which at first received mixed reviews, but quickly became a favorite bote in Europe and the USA. After a time, he decided to return to America because of its more relaxed and varied approach to music.
In 1935 he wrote "Porgy and Bess", which he called a "folk opera". It was first performed in a Broadway theater and many now feel it is the most highly regarded American opera of the twentieth century. Its music contains influences from the popular music of the day as well as advanced aspects of classical music. During the early part of 1937 Gershwin began complaining of bad headaches combined with the smell of burned rubber which was due to the tumor that ultimately took his life. In January, he had performed his music with the San Francisco Orchestra. He was working on another score titled "The Goldwyn Follies" when he died on July 11, 1937 following surgery for the tumor. He was 38 years of age. His sole Oscar nomination, for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 1937 Oscars, was awarded posthumously because he died two months before the film was released.
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