{"id":810,"date":"2015-03-23T19:50:27","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T00:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=810"},"modified":"2015-04-16T16:15:55","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T21:15:55","slug":"we-all-got-rhythm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/03\/23\/we-all-got-rhythm\/","title":{"rendered":"They all got Rhythm"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Gershwin wrote “I Got Rhythm” for the 1930’s musical\u00a0Girl Crazy<\/em>,\u00a0he couldn\u2019t have known what effect he had on the direction of jazz for years to come. The chord progressions and simple rhythm changes presented in “I Got Rhythm” have become second nature in the most common harmonic structure of jazz.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was 1930, and the Gershwin brothers were working on the score of Girl Crazy<\/em>, their next Broadway show. The chorus of the song, based on a syncopated four-note figure, was cast in standard 32-bar AABA form with a two-bar tag. Of the seventeen lines in the lyrics of its chorus, thirteen are set to the same four-note figure, a rhythmic cell that hits only one of the four strong beats in the two bars it covers. <\/span><\/p>\n

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For Ira (George’s brother and lyricist), “rhythm” in this song was tied up with aggressive, accented, syncopated groupings of beats. Together the music and lyrics would create a catchy tune that would become something so great in very little time.<\/span><\/p>\n