I've Got Rhythm

When George and Ira Gershwin wrote “I Got Rhythm” in 1928 for Treasure Girl, it didn’t get a lot of attention. Two years later they revamped the song with a snappier tempo in Girl Crazy, and suddenly it caught on. “I Got Rhythm” is an interesting study for music theory classes because the melody makes use of the first four notes of the pentatonic scale, because those first four notes are syncopated (falling just behind what would normally be the strong beats), and because the chord progression upon which the song is based serves as the foundation for dozens of subsequent jazz standards. Ethel Merman belted “I Got Rhythm” as part of the original Broadway cast of Girl Crazy. According to legend, George Gershwin approached her after reading the opening reviews and made her promise never to take a singing lesson.