swing feel

A rhythmic quality in which pairs of notated equal eighth notes are performed with a slight lilt — the first slightly longer and the second slightly shorter — evoking the feel of jazz and blues.

Gershwin's piano writing exists at the boundary between classical notation and jazz idiom. A subtle swing in eighth-note passages — especially in the Preludes and Songbook — brings the music to life without distorting the notated pitches.