JULY 11, 1937
In the distance, the rising howl of a siren, calling to mind the klezmer-style clarinet wail at the beginning of George’s Rhapsody. And in that lament, so much humor, so much melody, so much pain. Kay opened the ashtray in the door handle of the black DeSoto and snuffed out her cigarette. The rain abated as she rolled into the Upper East Side. Fewer pedestrians here. “Shall We Dance” playing in her head. Dah-da-daah, da da da dah dah. Dah-da-dah. Da da da deee. So George. She closed her eyes to listen. But why this dread?
In her apartment the telephone was ringing. Apprehensive, she ran to pick it up. It was Ira. “Kay, where have you been?” His voice weak, unsteady. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I was watching Shall We Dance in the theater. What is it, Ira?”
A pause.
“It’s about George,” Kay heard herself say. She covered her mouth as if stifling a wail.
“George is gone, Kay.”
She held onto the telephone stand. “What are you saying?”
“Last night,” said Ira. “He… he passed away.”
She swallowed. “But I… I just talked to him last night.”
“I know. He called me. Couldn’t stop talking about you. About settling down. A new phase. New songs. New everything.”
The phone fell from her hand. All her hopes. All their plans. She heard Ira’s voice in the distance. “He went to the piano. Wrote a song. For you, Kay.”
She brought the receiver back to her ear. “Ira. Ira. What happened?”
“He must have stood up and passed out, just like that. Left the song on the piano. Never came out of it. Brain tumor.”
Brain tumor? “How can that be? He was healthy. So much energy.”
“He seemed healthy. But those headaches…”
“Oh, God.” So it was not neurosis, after all.
“They called the White House. Tracked down the best surgeon in the country. Too late.” Ira was sobbing. Kay leaned against the wall, trying to absorb the news.
The phone rang continuously but she ignored it. Nor did she venture out. She spoke only with Ira. They arranged to have George’s body flown east. Olin Downes, long George’s detractor, wrote the front-page obituary that appeared in the New York Times:
No other American composer had such a funeral service. Not a MacDowell, not a Chadwick, not a Stephen Foster or Dan Emmett or John Philip Sousa received such parting honors. Authors, editors, playwrights, and critics; national figures of the stage, the screen, the radio, the ballet; celebrated musicians, from Paul Whiteman to Walter Damrosch, composers as well as executants, gathered to say hail and farewell. This was eloquent of the place Gershwin held in the public esteem… He was a born melodist, with a native instinct for exotic harmonic effects and rhythmical ingenuity… Jazz gained a new consideration with Gershwin, and Gershwin, in turn, contributed individual genius to the form. When the tumult and shouting are over, he will have a secure place in the American tonal art.
Memorial programs played George’s music from morning until night nationwide. Arnold Schoenberg, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern published tributes. The New York Herald Tribune printed details about the valuation of Gershwin’s intellectual property. Some of his individual works were worth tens of thousands of 1937 dollars based on projected future sales. Of all his compositions and songs, the least consequential, in strict financial terms, was deemed to be Porgy and Bess. That entire score was valued at twenty dollars. In his will, George expressed the desire that it never be performed except by an all-Negro cast. No blackface.
Simultaneous funeral services were held on both coasts. The synagogues filled to capacity and thousands of mourners stood outside in the rain in New York.
Kay entered Temple Emanu-El. A sea of mourners filled the hall and side rooms. Paul Mueller led her down the carpeted central aisle. Midway through the synagogue, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Jimmy. All three of their daughters stood at his side. “I am so sorry, Kay.” He blinked twice. She nodded. He embraced her and caressed her hair the way a father soothes his tearful daughter. They stood there for a long moment, indifferent to the gaze of others. Finally he moved to accommodate his daughters. Andrea threw her arms around Kay, crying. April pushed Andrea aside to hug her mother. She kissed her daughter’s forehead. She patted Kathleen’s hair.
At the front of the viewing line, she stood beside Ira. He squeezed her hand as he wept. George lay in his mahogany coffin dressed in his pin-striped gray flannel suit, his favorite—his hands clasped on his belly, his face serene, the hint of a smile on his lips. The mortician had pomaded his hair, rouged his thirty-eight-year-old cheeks, and inserted a red carnation in his lapel and a silk square in his breast pocket. George would have hated the painted cheeks and the carnation. Kay leaned down to offer him one last kiss, pulled the flower from his lapel, and threw it to the ground. No one reacted. She wiped her tears from his cheeks and whispered, “Good night, my sweet love.”
On the bimah, Ella Logan sang George’s last song. The one he was drafting after his phone call to Kay. The one he had dedicated to her. Ira titled it “Love Is Here To Stay.” Looking regal and fragile, Kay Swift listened, her face drenched in tears behind her dark veil.
In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble,
They’re only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.