Gershwin’s jazz roots were shaped by New York City’s streets and a Paris sojourn.

Outline / Skeleton

• Opening hook: Gershwin’s jazz love didn’t come from a single studio session; it grew from life in New York and a transformative stint in Paris.

• Core idea: The sounds around him in NYC and his time in Paris shaped a unique fusion of jazz and classical ideas.

• NYC as a living orchestra: street bands, Tin Pan Alley, Broadway scales, Harlem rhythms, and the appetite for new sounds.

• Paris as a cultural cross-pollinator: European modernism, Nadia Boulanger’s mentorship, and the impressionist palette that colored his approach.

• Concrete examples: Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris as vivid proof of fusion; how orchestration and jazz elements interact.

• Wider impact: Gershwin’s model for American art music—bridging popular idioms with classical craft—and what that meant for later composers.

• Takeaway: option B isn’t just a multiple-choice line; it’s a window into how place and experience push music forward.

What influenced George Gershwin's love for jazz? A quick map of influences points to one compelling answer: the sounds around him in New York City and his time in Paris. It’s not just trivia; it’s a story about how a city’s pulse and a European sojourn can fuse into something unmistakably American — something that still resonates when we hear Rhapsody in Blue on a concert program or in a film score.

New York City: a living orchestra you could walk through

Let me explain it this way. Gershwin didn’t grow up in a vacuum; he grew up with a city that hummed with rhythm. Brooklyn and Manhattan were microcosms of the early 20th century: colliding cultures, rapid change, and a musical economy that rewarded new sound worlds. In New York, jazz wasn’t a niche thing tucked away in clubs; it was part of the daily soundtrack. You could hear ragtime and blues on the street, you’d catch brass bands marching through parks, and you’d encounter a Broadway chorus line that was tuned to pop hooks and danceable grooves.

This environment made Gershwin not just a composer who dabbed in jazz; he absorbed a jazz sensibility as a language. He learned to treat syncopation like a sentence that could surprise you, to weave a blues note into a classical phrase, and to see forms—sonata-like architecture, fugue-like counterpoint, or a simple song form—as flexible vehicles for rhythm and color. It’s easy to imagine him listening to a streetcorner pianist, a Harlem-based ensemble, and a concert orchestra in the same breath, letting the sounds mingle until a new hybrid voice starts to emerge.

And then there’s Tin Pan Alley. The practical side of New York’s music ecosystem—its publishing houses, vaudeville stages, and the appetite for popular melodies—gave Gershwin a playground where catchy tunes and sophisticated harmonies could coexist. He learned not only to write something that sticks in your ear but also to craft orchestration that rewards repeat listening. In other words, the city offered the dual education of immediacy and depth: the quick appeal of a song, plus the power of a larger musical idea expressed with an orchestral sheen.

Paris: a brush with European modernism that widened his palette

If New York supplied the city’s heartbeat, Paris offered a different kind of education—exposure to European currents and a chance to test jazz-inflected ideas against a broader modernist canvas. Gershwin’s time in Paris, especially around 1928, put him in contact with composers and teachers who spoke the language of color, form, and refinement in ways that could feel almost scientific. The experience wasn’t about abandoning jazz; it was about learning to articulate it with more nuance and variety.

Enter Nadia Boulanger, the renowned teacher who mentored many of America’s mid-20th-century composers. Her disciplined approach to harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration gave Gershwin a vocabulary for blending jazz idioms with classical techniques. In Paris, he heard different tonal worlds—impressionist colors, neoclassical clarity, and a respect for formal design—that he could fold into his own Brooklyn-to-Broadway sensibility. The result wasn’t mere imitation of Parisian aesthetics; it was a synthesis that kept jazz’s spontaneity intact while expanding its expressive range.

Gershwin’s signature synthesis: jazz as a serious musical language

What does this cross-Atlantic dialogue actually produce in the music? Think of Rhapsody in Blue (1924). The piece performs a delicate balancing act: a symphonic orchestra underpinned by jazz-inflected rhythm and bluesy piano lines. It’s not a straight-ahead jazz solo; it’s a conversation between genres, with moments where the piano’s swagger and the orchestra’s grandeur meet in shared, almost cinematic moments. The cleverness lies in the orchestration—how brass, woodwinds, and strings respond to a jazz pianist’s bravura and how “classical” form frames a living, breathing idiom.

Another shining example is An American in Paris (composed around 1928). Here, the city’s own musical mosaic becomes the subject. Gershwin paints a sonic postcard of Paris through a blend of orchestral textures and jazz-inflected rhythms, then roots it in a structure that feels both cinematic and concert-hall formal. The music travels: street sounds become orchestral color; a bluesy turn becomes a formal cadence; a swing-like groove is braided into a suite-like architecture. In both pieces, you hear the same core idea: jazz isn’t a fringe accessory; it’s a language capable of shaping large-scale forms.

This fusion didn’t come from merely studying notes on a page; it came from living with sounds. NYC’s street corner blues and Paris’s salon conversations—these weren’t just backdrops. They were mentors, whispering, “Try this,” and “What if you push it a little further?” Gershwin answered with bravura but also with restraint—a knowing mix of spontaneity and craft.

A broader arc in American music

Gershwin’s approach helped set a template for what American art music could be: not a rigid separation between “classical” and “popular” idioms, but a dialogue. The 1920s and 1930s were a time when Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, Harlem clubs, and symphony orchestras weren’t isolated cocoons; they were overlapping circles. Gershwin’s success showed other composers that you could honor popular song’s immediacy while still exploring formal complexity and orchestral color.

That cross-pollination also fed later generations. Think of how Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and others would carry forward the idea that American classical music could speak in multiple registers—jazz-inflected rhythms, folk-like melodies, and high-art orchestration all living under one roof. Gershwin’s model wasn’t a recipe for a single sound; it was a blueprint for a flexible mind, a willingness to listen across boundaries, and the discipline to make those influences coherent within a single work.

A few threads worth lingering over

• The sounds as teachers: Gershwin didn’t just copy jazz tricks; he absorbed them as expressive tools. He treated rhythm like a living thing that could propel a melody and shape a form, not unlike a motor that powers a car through a city’s streets.

• The Paris workshop: Paris wasn’t just a vacation; it was a studio where ideas could be tested with a different set of rules. The impressionist palette and the emphasis on color offered alternative ways to express mood and narrative in music.

• The social context: The jazz-age ambiance wasn’t merely about nightlife; it was about a cultural moment where Americans were redefining identity through music. Gershwin’s work sits at the crossroads of Broadway, concert halls, and the radio era—an era that valued accessibility as much as artistry.

• The craft side: The architectural sense in his music—the way a large-scale piece holds together with recurring motifs, contrasting sections, and careful pacing—shows a composer who could respect both form and fluidity. That balance is what makes his fusion feel inevitable, not gimmicky.

A few friendly notes for students of music history

• When you study Gershwin, listen for the hinge moments. How does a jazz idiom swing into a classical cadence? Where do you hear a blue note braided into a barline? These are the signals that tell you the influences aren’t competing; they’re collaborating.

• Don’t overlook the social networks. The NYC scene wasn’t just a backdrop; it was a network of publishers, clubs, composers, and performers who shared ideas, borrowed phrases, and challenged each other to evolve.

• Consider the time as a canvas. The 1920s and 1930s were a period of rapid change in technology, media, and tastes. Gershwin’s music reflects that energy—bright, accessible, yet formally ambitious.

Closing thoughts: the right answer, in plain language

If you’re asking what shaped Gershwin’s love for jazz, the most accurate answer is indeed that the sounds around him in New York City and his time in Paris were the twin engines of his creativity. New York’s street-level, ever-changing soundscape gave him an ear for rhythm, color, and the push-pull between improvisation and structure. Paris offered a different kind of training—one that refined his craft and broadened his tonal vocabulary without diluting the jazz heartbeat.

That blend—city-born vitality plus European refinement—produced music that feels both modern and timeless. It’s a reminder that great art often grows at intersections: where a bustling metropolis and a quiet studio in Paris meet, where pop songcraft meets orchestral architecture, and where a piano’s swagger meets a symphony’s gravity.

So next time you listen to Rhapsody in Blue or An American in Paris, pause for the moment these influences collide. The music you hear is the result of a conversation between two worlds, a conversation Gershwin kept open long enough to invite jazz into the concert hall and, in doing so, to invite the world in through a richer, more human music. And that, in the end, is what makes his love for jazz so enduring—and so instructive for anyone studying the history of American music.