Lady, Be Good! embodies several milestones which make it memorable for more than just its foot-tapping entertainment value. It was the first full-length collaboration between George Gershwin and his lyricist brother, Ira Gershwin—a partnership which gave birth to an unprecedented number of deftly crafted standards—as well as the Gershwins' first collaboration with the already popular brother-and-sister dance team of Fred and Adele Astaire. It was around the Astaires' phenomenal talents that Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson crafted the fluffy situation comedy, full of snappy dialogue, that formed the basis for Lady, Be Good!, and it was for them that Gershwin developed a style of parlando song for non-singers—a sort of syncopated patter song—which threw his brother's smartly articulate lyrics into bold relief ("I'd Rather Charleston" is a fine instance, while "Fascinating Rhythm" is perhaps the supreme example). Indeed, the Astaires became the visual incarnation of the score's visceral pull. Finally, in Lady, Be Good! jazz and blues-inflected melody melded with musical comedy with unprecedented expansiveness, richness, and rhythmic compulsion. "Fascinating Rhythm," one may well say!

As familiar as Gershwin's multi-faceted style has become, it is difficult to grasp just how electrifying its still-potent elements must have been in their time. Gershwin, after all, had just completed Rhapsody in Blue for Paul Whiteman's Aeolian Hall "experimental" concert of jazz crossover compositions given on February 12, 1924; he began putting Lady, Be Good! together for its Philadelphia tryout in October of that year.

The show opened on Broadway at the Liberty Theatre on December 1, running for 330 performances—a smash hit for its era—throughout which the make-up of the score continued to change. Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards, as the butler, not only performed Gershwin's "Little Jazz Bird" but several of his own numbers—when he left the show, they went, too. Likewise, the duo piano team of Arden and Ohman were allotted several routines in which they improvised on Gershwin's tunes; they, too, eventually decamped. At this point, the notion of a "score" seems problematic—as Tommy Krasker found when he prepared a performing edition of Lady, Be Good! in 1991. Remarking that "manuscripts indicated how much the original production varied from night to night ... as the performers (in true vaudeville fashion) adjusted, shaped, and stretched their material," Krasker concludes that "Lady, Be Good! was a perpetual work-in-progress; its only constant was its success."

But between what remains and what has been reconstructed with a fair degree of authenticity, Lady, Be Good! looms as a crossover landmark as revelatory and fertile in its way as Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper (1928) was to prove for European composers. And though few can quote the source, it has given us such enduringly palpitating standards as "Hang On to Me," "So Am I," "Oh, Lady Be Good," "The Half Of It Dearie, Blues," "Swiss Miss," "I'd Rather Charleston," and, of course, the ubiquitous "Fascinating Rhythm."

© All Music Guide

Oh, Lady Be Good

The Gershwin brothers' first musical together, Oh, Lady Be Good, from 1924 starred the brother and sister singing and dancing team Adele and Fred Astaire playing a brother and sister dancing team. The show's title song, however, was not sung by either of the Astaires but by the comic lead as an attempt to persuade the sister to impersonate a Mexican woman in order to collect 100,000 dollars so that she can stop her brother from marrying the rich woman he loves but of whom he believes he's unworthy. The whole plot's like that, but it doesn't really matter: Oh, Lady Be Good, with Ira's lyrics rhyming "babe in the woods" with "lady be good" and George's swooning melody and lush harmonies, took on a life of its own and the song became a standard before the show closed.

© All Music Guide

Fascinatin' Rhythm

This is one of Gershwin's most enduring songs, one which combines a catchy melody and clever lyrics with fascinating musical complexities. It is both polyrhythmic and polymetric (the accompaniment and melody often follow different rhythms and are in different meters), and full of off-beat accents, but surprisingly enough, there are many moments when at least one part is in the standard, plain vanilla meter of 4/4.

The melodic line, while always logical, never random, changes at just the moment when the listener has grasped a particular pattern, forcing his or her concentration, and as often as not, leading to the result that the singer is complaining about, a rhythmic pattern is stuck in his or her head. To test just how insinuating this song is, try listening to it, and then speaking the lyrics in a normal speech pattern, without using the song's accents; the odds are you'll find it nearly impossible!

In 1970, George Balanchine used it in his Gershwin ballet, "Who cares?," and it was one of that show's biggest hits.

© All Music Guide

So Am I

Lady, Be Good was one of the most successful Broadway musicals of the 1924 season, and among its several Gershwin songs, two became hits: "Fascinating Rhythm" and "So Am I." The presence of Fred and Adele Astaire and the Guy Bolton/Fred Thompson story about an evicted brother and sister, and their quest for shelter and love were important ingredients in the show's success, but Gershwin's music, set to his brother Ira's lyrics, was also a key element in the effort. While "So Am I" was somewhat overshadowed by "Fascinating Rhythm" at the time, it has held its own over the years and still remains popular today. "So Am I" is a quite touching love song, even though it deliberately pokes fun at romance. The pacing is moderate and the mood intimate, turning somewhat playful when the main theme is sung. This catchy melody exhibits a slightly exotic joy in its graceful charm, showing virtually nothing of the composer's hot jazz character or his black American folk style. The song sounds more mainstream, more like the music of Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. At around four minutes, it is somewhat longer than Gershwin's usual length of two-and-a-half to three minutes.

© Robert Cummings, All Music Guide