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Cathy Wurzer
St. Paul, Minn.

'Rhapsody in Blue' was performed live for the first time on this date 90 years ago

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Today's music is from 90 years ago today when "Rhapsody in Blue" was performed live for the first time.

Just a few weeks earlier, Paul Whiteman had commissioned George Gershwin to create a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert.

It was played by Whiteman's orchestra with Gershwin on piano at Aeolian Hall in New York City. This recording of Gershwin and the Whiteman Orchestra was made just a few months after that first performance in 1924.

Gershwin told a biographer that "Rhapsody in Blue" was conceived while he was riding on a train, listening to its rhythms.

"I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise.... and there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness," said.