Since its premiere in Gershwin's 1930 musical Girl Crazy, the song I Got Rhythm has been performed, arranged, and recorded countless times. In these subsequent realizations of Gershwin's song three approaches can be identified in which the original material is treated as (1) a song played and sung by popular performers, (2) a jazz standard, a piece known and frequently played by musicians in the jazz tradition, and (3) a musical structure, a harmonic framework upon which jazz instrumentalists have built new compositions. These new compositions, called contrafacts, include examples such as Duke Ellington's 1940 Cotton Tail, Charlie Parker's 1940 Steeplechase, Parker and "Dizzy" Gillespie's 1945 Shaw 'Nuff, and many others. Tables listing titles of Parker I Got Rhythm contrafacts and recordings of I Got Rhythm contrafacts (up to 1942) are included.

Works: Ellington: Cotton Tail (229-30), Parker: Steeplechase (232), Red Cross (232), Moose the Mooche (233), An Oscar For Treadwell (233); Parker and Gillespie: Shaw 'Nuff (239).

Sources: Gershwin: I Got Rhythm (213-44).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz, Popular

Contributed by: Scott Grieb