An American in London

I’m invited for dinner at the home of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador in London. House rules are no discussion of politics and I am told that a fellow guest, who is arriving later to help ensure that the rules are kept, is Larry Adler.
Do I know him? Oh yes. Does the ambassador know him? Certainly. In that case, does he know his story about Rhapsody in Blue? He doesn't, so I tell it to him.
First time I meet Larry Adler is in Newcastle upon Tyne and he plays Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, one of my all-time favourites, in a concert at the City Hall.
Early in 1930, he tells me afterwards, he is just turned 16 and travels from Baltimore to New York where he hopes to make his fortune with his mouth organ (never, he insists, a “harmonica”). He has little luck, and is reduced to busking for the Broadway queues when he somehow bumps into a musician called Frankie Tromboni. Plays the sax. Well, with a name like that, what would you expect him to play? Adler’s stories are full of such diversions. Mr Tromboni plays at New York’s Roxy Theatre and is married into a family from Naples called Arena.
Trombini tells young Adler that Paul Whiteman is holding auditions for his new orchestra. There are 125 musicians in it so, as he explains, it is as good a chance as he is likely to get, and somehow he procures the kid an interview.
“I walk into his office. It is like walking into City Hall. At the far end, behind a desk, is Paul Whiteman. There is another guy, sitting in an armchair in a corner, reading a paper.”
The impresario eventually looks up from his desk and says: “Well, Alder… I agree to see you as a favour but I have to tell you I don’t need no harmonica player.”
“That’s fine, Mr Whiteman. Because I ain't no harmonica player; I play the mouth organ. And, by the way, it’s Adler not Alder. You should remember the name.” The little man defiantly produces the instrument from his trouser pocket, and waves it.
Whiteman smiles indulgently. Then he shrugs. Give the kid a chance. “OK. What can you play?”
“I’m a virtuoso, Mr Whiteman. I can play anything.”
Now the impresario laughs. “Fine. Let’s hear you play Rhapsody in Blue.”
But the problem here is that Adler hears people talking about this composition, but he never hears it played. If he hears it, even only once, he can play the whole thing out of his head. He has a gift. Worse still, he can see a copy of the sheet music on Whiteman’s desk and doesn’t want to admit that he can't read music. So he rashly says: “I could play it, Mr Whiteman, but I’d rather not. Truth is, I don’t actually like it.”
At which Whiteman laughs again, turns to the guy in the corner and says: “Hear that, Gershwin? This boy don’t like your Rhapsody in Blue.”
He doesn’t get the job.
He also learns later that the piece is specially commissioned by Whiteman.
Fast forward two decades and Gershwin is in France on the set of the Gene Kelly movie, An American In Paris. In the meantime Adler buys the record and learns to read music. He crosses the Atlantic, somehow contrives a meeting, and persuades the composer to listen to his interpretation of the great work.
“You play that Goddam thing so well it sounds like I write it for you to play,” says Gershwin. “It’s yours, now. You can play it whenever you like. And say I give it to you.”
Now... It’s just a good story, ok? Not hilarious. But when I get to the end the Ambassador is rocking on his heels with laughter. I look round, and down, and see little Larry standing behind me, a broad grin on his face, too. I don’t know how long he is standing there, listening. He blinks up at me through his horn-rimmed glasses. “You tell that Goddam story so well it sounds like it is written for you to tell,” he says. “It’s yours, now. You can tell it whenever you like, and say I give it to you.”
So I do.
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