George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait

10. "Don't Make It Too Good, George!"

ten “Don’t Make It Too Good, George!” In the fall of 1933, George and Ira moved out of their adjoining apartments on Riverside Drive to East Seventy-second Street near Park Avenue on the Upper East Side, where they took apartments across the street from one another. This was as far as they would ever live apart, and it was as close as they ever got to having separate households. George’s was a penthouse apartment consisting of fourteen rooms on two floors. He had changed decorating styles and was no longer interested in the moderne look or any one style but bought whatever furniture appealed to him. The new place was even more sumptuous than the old one had been. There was a gymnasium, an art studio, a garden, and plenty of wall space for his growing art collection. For a piano studio, he had a replica made of his old song-plugger’s cubicle. This apartment was his great extravagance, and he delighted in it—one could not visit him without getting the grand tour. It was also, he believed, a necessity, as he was continually going to parties at the homes of rich folk and wanted to reciprocate. Yet, as wealthy as he was, he still found it easy to be one of the boys. Duke Ellington re- 70 george฀gershwin membered him at rehearsals of Show Girl, “dressed like a stagehand, who could get in the front or back stage door. In a sports shirt, with no tie, he would humbly take his place in the standing-room area. If you didn’t know him, you would never guess that he was the great George Gershwin .”1 During the Porgy and Bess rehearsals, he would sit in the back of the darkened theater wearing an old hat and a tweed sports jacket, cracking peanut shells.2 It was also during those rehearsals that he instructed the first Porgy, Todd Duncan, about what “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’” was really about. It was not, as Duncan assumed, a happy-go-lucky song. “What you’re doing,” Gershwin said, “is making fun of us. You’re making fun of people who make money and to whom power and position is very important.”3 Gershwin was hoping that the upcoming concert tour would provide an infusion of cash that would tide him over during the writing of Porgy. Another source of income would be a twice-a-week radio program that he was set to host on NBC immediately after the tour ended. That would bring in a solid $2,000 a week. The concert tour was speculative; he was sharing its costs and, hopefully, its profits with promoter Askins. Shortly before the tour began bandleader Leo Reisman had to drop out due to a hip fracture and was replaced by Charles Previn. Thus, the ensemble’s name was changed from Leo Reisman and His Orchestra to the Reisman Symphonic Orchestra. There were fifty-five pieces in the band, and Gershwin scored the Variations on “I Got Rhythm” specifically for it. This was good practice because he would be writing Porgy for a pit orchestra of similar size. Theconcertschedulewasgrueling.Everyeveningfortwenty-eightnights there was another show in another city. The performances were generally sold out, but some venues were too small to offer any chance of a profit. On January 24, when they played at the West High School Auditorium in Madison, Wisconsin, more than a thousand people were turned away.4 Another problem occurred in Toronto where a hotel desk clerk refused to give Gershwin accommodations because he was Jewish. Paul Mueller, his valet, who was German, was welcome. According to a diary kept by Mueller, they ended up at the Royal York Hotel that night and found it to be a depressing place. It is not known if the Royal York was a second choice or if it had been the original choice and had finally relented and allowed 71 “Don’t Make It Too Good, George!” Gershwin to take a room. In any event, Gershwin did not make a fuss; as usual when faced with a slight, he just stepped around it. The concert schedule was strenuous for everyone and herculean for George. Each night he played the Concerto in F, the Rhapsody in Blue, the “I Got Rhythm” Variations, as well as solo versions of “Fascinating Rhythm,” “The Man I Love,” “Liza,” and...