Desde su adolescencia, Gershwin se había enamorado de la música que escuchaba en Harlem, una zona de Manhattan que se estaba convirtiendo rápidamente en el centro del universo del jazz. Su primer intento de componer algo más serio —la ópera en un acto *Blue Monday*— trataba sobre los personajes de un club nocturno de Harlem. Su estreno en Broadway, con cantantes blancos que actuaban con la cara pintada de negro, fue un fracaso y solo se representó una vez. 

El siguiente intento de Gershwin de fusionar música clásica y jazz fue para el concierto "An Experiment in Modern Music" de Paul Whiteman, en febrero de 1924. Esa pieza se conoce ahora como Rhapsody in Blue. Le siguió su Concierto en Fa, que algunos escritores llamaron "The Jazz Piano Concerto". Estas dos obras gozaron de gran popularidad, aunque los críticos seguían siendo cautelosos con sus elogios. 

A trip abroad inspired Gershwin to work in earnest on a commission he had received from the New York Philharmonic. His idea for the new work solidified as he was shopping for Parisian taxi horns to take back to the US: Capture the tumult of Paris’ streets in music and create a concert work that didn’t center on the piano. 

Back in New York, Gershwin finished An American in Paris, which he subtitled “A Tone Poem for Orchestra.” In an interview in the August 18, 1928, edition of Musical America, he said, “This new piece, really a rhapsodic ballet, is written very freely and is the most modern music I have yet attempted.” He also gave a brief program note of the work: “The opening gay section is followed by a rich ‘blues’ with a strong rhythmic undercurrent. Our American…perhaps after strolling into a café and having a few drinks, has suddenly succumbed to a spasm of homesickness. The harmony here is both more intense and simple than in the preceding pages. This ‘blues’ rises to a climax followed by a coda in which the spirit of the music returns to the vivacity and bubbling exuberance of the opening part with its impressions of Paris. Apparently the homesick American, having left the café and reached the open air, has downed his spell of the blues and once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life. At the conclusion, the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant.” 

Though not a critical success, An American in Paris was wildly and widely embraced by audiences—and Hollywood—and established Gershwin as an original voice in concert halls worldwide, a voice that resonates to this day.

- Dave Kopplin