Voce

I personally am cautious of using the word "jazz" to describe Gershwin's music. It might have been "jazzy" in the '20s and '30s, but jazz has changed a lot since its influence appeared in Gershwin's music. Regardless, his music is definitely infused with bits of the other genres of music he was interested in throughout his life, and the big band music of the 20's and 30's is one of the things that helped shape his musical language. It can be strongly heard in pieces like the overture to "Lady be good" and the famous Rhapsody in Blue.
Then you get pieces like his piano concerto.
Gershwin's piano concerto in f is one of the more classically-influenced pieces of his output, and has the traditional concerto's fast-slow-fast tempo set up. In it, you can hear things that you might hear out of Rachmaninoff, or Tchaikovsky. After that, he turns around and goes into long sections of jazzy melody and harmony.
So, what was Gershwin? Was he a jazz musician at heart who wrote pieces with classical forms, or did he lean towards the trends in the art music of his time? Or, as I've been convinced, was he a little bit of both? A man who wasn't one or the other, but used both classical and jazz influence to shape the music he wrote?
What do you think?