Ira Gershwin and Vernon Duke

And if we ask why we go further back in this particular period of Early Broadway and Blues/Jazz Music than in any other, the answer is no doubt that Tin Pan Alley-Follies-Vaudeville-Broadway play narratives, for all their beauty and glamour, were a very imperfect medium, an over-idealized medium from our view now. It is true that they were almost perfectly capable of fulfilling one of the chief offices of the lyric which is to make people sing, simply and naturally, about ordinary daily life. And yes, Ira Gershwin’s lyrics to “I Can’t Get Started” dramatize the age old girl-doesn’t-want-boy even though boy is the perfect boy (Oxford grad., very well off, well connected, etc.). Even more, our narrator lists, in classical list form, flying a plane, conquering Spain, surveying the North pole, starring in Metro-Goldwyn, out-golfing any pro, mingling with all the movie idols of the day as well as political figures—as we will see—Clarke Gable, Greta Garbo, Count Basie, Robert Taylor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and Leontyne Price. And though the lyrics are fabulously easy to sing in the shower, we know s/he still doesn’t get the girl/boy. And why does Vernon Duke’s music make him/her seem so upbeat about it? So almost, well, elated?

One question spawns many more: Wasn’t Ira Gershwin, THE George Gershwin’s brother? Why was Vernon Duke composing music with Ira Gershwin? Who was Vernon Duke anyway? How did he meet Ira Gershwin? And just what were these Follies, Ziegfeld and Goldwyn?