Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue" Encapsulates Struggles For The Soul Of American Music
When the "Rhapsody" bowed, classical was seemly, jazz the outsider. By the time the jazz-band version was again in the ascendant, jazz itself had become "America's classical music." Now, both traditions are marginal to popular-music dominance. Near the end of the 1996 Ben Folds Five single "Underground" " a cheery, piano-pop ode to more hard-core […]