The secret feud between Duke Ellington and George Gershwin
From the Gallagher brothers’ running feud to Johnny Rotten’s apparent hatred for everybody, musicians’ egos have been causing arguments for decades. While most conflicts are confined to being between members of the same group, artists occasionally take aim at each other, resulting in long-standing feuds that often outlive their respective musical careers. A little-known feud within the jazz world saw Duke Ellington set his sights on the famous composer George Gershwin.
During the 1930s, there were few names bigger than Duke Ellington when it came to jazz music. One of the most prolific and important jazz composers of all time, Ellington has undeniably influenced the genre. On the flip side, George Gershwin has composed various iconic tracks spanning many styles of popular and classical music, including jazz. In 1935, Gershwin constructed the jazz opera Porgy and Bess – a project which caused a rift between the composer and Duke Ellington.
The Broadway opera was fairly innovative for the time period, featuring a cast of classically trained Black performers. It is a story surrounding Porgy, a disabled Black street beggar, and his attempts to rescue Bess from her abusive partner and drug dealer. Potentially a daring topic to discuss on Broadway today, you can imagine the outrage that the opera caused within society back in 1935.
While much of the outrage, predictably, arose from the inherent racist values that plagued almost every aspect of American society at the time, Gershwin’s opera also received criticism from Black artists themselves. The subject matter was problematic in that it played upon stereotypes of the Black population within America, in addition to the fact that it was, after all, written by a white man. It’s possible that, under modern standards, Gershwin’s opera would be criticised for having a sense of ‘white saviour complex’; however, it was the opera’s apparent lack of originality that offended Duke Ellington.
Interviewed by Harlem journalist Edward Morrow, Ellington took an uncharacteristic swipe at Gershwin’s opera, saying, “It does not use the Negro musical idiom.” before expanding upon the apparent plagiarism of the opera’s music, “Gershwin surely didn’t discriminate: he borrowed from everyone from Liszt to Dickie Wells’ kazoo band.” Whether these quotes were exaggerated, fabricated or misquoted, Ellington was reportedly saddened upon seeing these quotes published – though, tellingly, he made little attempt to distance himself from the comments.
Perhaps backing up the theory that Ellington’s distaste for Gershwin’s opera was exaggerated, the jazz legend showed a great appreciation for Porgy and Bess in later life. After the opera was revived in 1952 for a production by Blevins Davis and Robert Breen, Ellington sent a telegram to the show’s producers, reading, “Your Porgy and Bess the superbest, singing the gonest, acting the craziest, Gershwin the greatest.” As if that wasn’t enough, Ellington appeared with his orchestra on a 1956 recording, The Complete Porgy and Bass, based upon Gershwin’s opera.
Whether or not the feud between Gershwin and Duke Ellington was the wild fabrication of a wannabe journalist, it remains an interesting aspect of the jazz musician’s career. In that same interview, Ellington claimed that he would never write an opera, saying, “I have to make a living, and so I have to have an audience.” The quote is telling of the inherent difference between Black and white artists: white artists like Gershwin have the freedom to experiment within their art, whereas people like Duke Ellington must – to some degree – play it safe so that their career does not get ripped from underneath them by institutionalised attitudes of racism that are praying for their downfall.
