Gershwin's previous musical, Lady, Be Good! was a bigger hit, but the 194 performances of Tip-Toes made for a respectable success. The show was full of brilliant tunes. Gershwin expert and conductor John McGlinn opines that its music and book were a perfect reflection of the jazz age. Its songs include "Looking for a Boy," "That Certain Feeling," "Sweet and Low-Down," "Lady Luck," and the title tune.

The book was by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson. The romantic leads are a rich young man who wants to be loved for himself and the niece of a pair of broken-down vaudevillians. The cast includes some vaudeville and theater types, and some relatives of the rich boy, and the script consists mostly of a succession of truly corny jokes. McGlinn says it's all "falling-down funny," "silly and proud of it."

The musical was originally scheduled to be produced in September 1925, but was pushed back four months to December. This delay gave Gershwin the extra time that he needed to begin the composition of a project that he had been mulling over for a short time, the Piano Concerto in F. He started on this work in the middle weeks of July, quickly completing the opening movements. By the end of that summer, Gershwin was working on three compositions at once. Along with finishing the final movements of the Piano Concerto, Gershwin was working on Tip-Toes with his brother, Ira, and he was collaborating with other composers on a Hammerstein operetta, Song of the Flame (1925). Also, at this time, the Gershwin family was in the middle of moving to a new five-story house in downtown New York City. There were often many people visiting and playing all sorts of games at this house, and at times Gershwin had to retreat to the nearby Whitehall Hotel for peace and quiet.

Gershwin, as usual, barely completed Tip-Toes prior to the start of rehearsals. Its first performance was given in Newark on November 29, 1925. The next few weeks were perhaps the busiest of Gershwin's life, with the opening of Tip-Toes, as well as the first performances of the Piano Concerto and Song of the Flame. On December 3, the Piano Concerto was given its first performance at Carnegie Hall. Tip-Toes continued its pre-New York tour in Philadelphia on December 7, a performance at which Gershwin was present. The next day, Gershwin presented the Piano Concerto with the New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch in Washington D.C. On December 9, the Piano Concerto was performed in Baltimore, and that evening, Song of the Flame began its pre-Broadway tour in Wilmington. On top of all this, while staying at a hotel in Baltimore, Gershwin received a telegram from Pauline Heifetz, whom the composer had been seeing, stating that she had been proposed to by another man. Gershwin had no time for such matters, and immediately sent the lovers words of congratulations.

© All Music Guide

Looking for a Boy

Tip-Toes premiered with great success on December 28, 1925, and many consider it the seminal step forward in the composer's maturation. George Gershwin had previously achieved several scattered hits in various Broadway productions, but in Tip-Toes, there were five: "That Certain Feeling," "Sweet and Low Down," "When Do We Dance?," "These Charming People," and this song, "Looking for a Boy," probably the most popular of them all. The show went on to more than 190 performances and gave Gershwin one of his biggest successes up to that time, though Oh, Kay! would far surpass it the following season. "Looking for a Boy" is one of those songs whose catchy melody is made all the more attractive and spicy by Gershwin's bluesy harmonies and rhythmic snap. The composer also makes extensive use of a five-note series from the pentatonic scale (G-A-C-D-E), as he would in 'Sweet and Low Down" and other songs from the period, including several in Oh, Kay!, such as "Clap Yo' Hands." While the rhyme of some of lyricist Ira Gershwin's lines in "Looking for a Boy" is rather simple ("Where can he be/The loving he, who'll bring to me..."), the words and music mesh brilliantly to yield a colorful, quirky song of infectious melodic and rhythmic appeal.

© Robert Cummings, All Music Guide

Sweet and Low-Down

Some musicologists have rightly asserted that Tip-Toes marked a major step forward for George Gershwin: his level of inspiration had become more consistent in his songs for this show and his style had evolved toward greater maturity. But it might also be said that with this highly successful 1925 production, his brother Ira Gershwin had also moved a rung or so higher in his role as lyricist. Their collaboration had yielded at least five hits for this show, including "Looking for a Boy" and this song, "Sweet and Low Down." The song begins in a subdued, slightly exotic and bluesy mood, and gradually builds to the sometimes soaring but always sassy music of the refrain, whose bold lyrics also capture the ear: "Grab a cab and go down/To where the band is playing/Blow that Sweet and Low Down." The music's infectious swagger and carefree sense impart a sort of dapper jaunt to the manner of the pacing, and Gershwin's bluesy accompaniment—whether on piano or in the original ensemble scoring—spices the notes to meld so perfectly with the words. This is an irresistible gem from the Gershwins.

© Robert Cummings, All Music Guide

That Certain Feeling

As the year 1925 came to an end, George Gershwin was a busy man. On December 3, he gave the premiere of his Piano Concerto in Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Society under Walter Damrosch. On the 30th, Song of the Flame, an unabashed operetta composed in collaboration with Herbert Stothart, received its premiere at the 44th Street Theater to run for 219 performances. And, rather incredibly, just days before, on the 28th, the musical, Tip Toes, with another airheaded book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson and pure Jazz Age lyrics by Ira Gershwin, opened at the Liberty Theater to annoy critics and delight audiences—for 194 performances—with such percolating numbers as "Looking for a Boy," the satiric "These Charming People," "Sweet and Low Down," and "That Certain Feeling." The composer must have had a lingering affection for the latter two as they turn up among the 18 items of the 1932 George Gershwin's Song Book in lovingly deft transcriptions—"That Certain Feeling" marked "Ardently." And in its ardor, "That Certain Feeling" pays homage to Jerome Kern, but with a smartly syncopated phrasing surpassing Kern's own jazzy pizzazz, and rendering the near non-melody of its repeated notes indelibly compelling.

© Adrian Corleonis, All Music Guide