Gershwin

Gershwin began as a teenage song plugger on Tin Pan Alley and went on to write Broadway songs that became jazz standards as well as concert works. His breakthrough in the concert hall began with a commission he had not accepted: he learnt from a newspaper that Paul Whiteman had announced a new jazz concerto by him for a performance only five weeks away. Gershwin began Rhapsody in Blue on a train to Boston and finished it while also completing the musical Sweet Little Devil.