Gershwin's "Cuban Overture" as Little-Known Work, but More Relevant Today

I've written several articles here in the last couple of years about George Gershwin's works and giving some new slants to their eternal meaning or current relevance for new audiences. But while writing about "Rhapsody in Blue" and all of the other overplayed Gershwin works are fun to analyze in all their myriad layers, it's much more fascinating to study many of the composer's little-known works that are just as important as the ones you think of first. When I wrote about Gershwin's "Second Rhapsody" last year (the more or less follow-up to "Rhapsody in Blue"), I equated the music being representative of the early days to The Great Depression as a contrast to the bristle and bustle of the first Rhapsody's representation of the Roaring 20's. Likewise, with Gershwin's seldom-played "Cuban Overture", we have one of the deepest impressions of a whole other bustling world: Pre-Castro Cuba.

Back in 1932, Havana was the place to be for the elite who needed to kick back after assumedly working too hard for a long period of time. If many of the elite had already flung themselves off skyscrapers three years earlier after the stock market tanked, those in the entertainment field were thriving during the height of our Great Depression. George Gershwin was already on the Mt. Olympus of America's foremost composers, both of popular song and in the classical realms. He also was worked to the bone out of the wildly extreme demand for his music. Heading to Havana for a vacation was just the ticket after nearly 15 years of unparalleled success. The Cuban city also became an unknowing catalyst in his next musical endeavor.

While he was staying there in the late winter of '32, the Cuban Rumba captured Gershwin's imagination the minute he heard it in the myriad clubs lining the Paseo del Prado and other boulevards. Of course, Gershwin was all about rhythm, and that mission statement was evident in arguably his most famous pop song ever--"I Got Rhythm." He wasn't just about simplistic or monotonous rhythm either if you compare rhythm then with today's Top 40 understanding of it. Everything he wrote, whether it was within the pop realm or classical, incorporated complex rhythm patterns that were far ahead of their time if challenging to execute without the highest degree of musicianship and an innate understanding of how it works.

No, Gershwin didn't invent jazz, but he certainly added a lot to it. Today, Cuban rhythms are meshed with the generic term of jazz all the time. But other than unknown Cuban classical composers before Gershwin's time, there hadn't been a quasi classical work composed in America that utilized the Rumba rhythms in a way that Americans could relate to. The true greatness of Gershwin's music was in his ability to blend different cultural rhythms into a melting pot of pure musical liquid gold. Listening carefully to the tapestry of that in all his classical works is as musically and intellectually refreshing as hearing anything by Mozart. The only difference is that Gershwin created serious classical music that could live by the old American Bandstand audience credo: Is it catchy and can you dance to it?

If you take fifteen minutes to listen to Gershwin's "Cuban Overture", you probably can without being tased or escorted out of the building.
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Most casual fans of Gershwin probably have no idea that the premiere of his "Cuban Overture" was one of his biggest successes. It's no exaggeration to say that Gershwin was the equivalent of a rock superstar back then when you consider thousands of people were turned away while trying to get in to hear the premiere of this latest work in August of 1932. Probably because he had other projects on the agenda first, Gershwin didn't write the "Cuban Overture" right away after his Havana vacation. The reason being is because the Rumba rhythms he was going to incorporate took time to study--especially because he eventually concocted a new blend of rhythm pattern with the piece that would stand alone.

Despite the wait, the piece was still written during a one month interval later that summer and was initially going to be called "Rumba" before realizing the banality of the title.

Even if you weren't told that it was written by Gershwin, you'd likely be able to decipher it as a Gershwin work based on the opening and engaging theme using standard orchestral instruments, yet with bongos and maracas as the underlying Cuban rhythm pattern. This opening theme is arguably the most representative of any when musically defining exuberance for life along with an engaging and recurring Cuban clave that will draw you in immediately. The melodic structure of the opening themes and its variations takes you right into the heart of Gershwin's attempts at consolidating everything he knew musically at that point, which had, by then, gone to a golden crest.

The ongoing use of the Cuban percussion in the background also makes this about as palpably and sexually intense as Ravel's "Bolero", particularly in the final passages. Because Gershwin studied with Ravel, that isn't much of a stretch outside of the Overture having a faster tempo and filled with enough zest to wipe out any notion it was written during The Great Depression. Havana was a whole other world outside of the economic realities of America at the time. In a modern context, that pours a whole pile of irony onto the picture. The age of Castro 27 years after the debut of Gershwin's "Cuban Overture" took down any notion of an American composer bringing the boisterous life, hopes and dreams of the Cuban people into a piece of classical music.

That's perhaps why it's been forgotten how popular this Gershwin work was or why it hasn't been performed much in the last five decades. It's only been in more recent years when you've been hearing it performed on recordings or in the concert hall a little more often as people get worn out hearing "Rhapsody in Blue" or "American in Paris" for the umpteenth time on concert programs.

And now that our current Presidential Administration is reaching out to Cuba in a controversial link to repair relations, hearing the soul of "Cuban Overture" through a modern context gives a connective string to Cuba's musical legacy that briefly influenced one of our greatest American composers. Long before Communism overtook Cuba, Gershwin already linked America arm-in-arm with the Cuban people. Outside of politics, that culture still stands there ready to be reconnected as it has over the years in rare intervals. The ultimate experience would be to attend a concert in Cuba with "Cuban Overture" on the bill. Seeing the reaction of the Cuban people to it would be a barometer to how well America and Cuba can blend again.

Having a chance for the American people to go there and take in the culture without being accused of being a Communist is really the new message of the "Cuban Overture" when hearing it with new ears. Gershwin erased all boundaries to the blending of different cultural sounds as a masterful first step toward international reconciliation...