David Meeker's Ten Favourite Jazz Films

Duke Ellington behind the scene of NBC's What Is Jazz? (1958) episode#1 [Source: GettyImages]

David Meeker, the author of Jazz in the Movies (and its online, massively updated version, Jazz on the Screen, available on the website of the Library of Congress), has been kind enough to furnish me with the list of his favourite jazz films. I don't think anyone in the world has seen as many jazz films as David has and certainly no-one has bothered spending years retrieving information (including song lists and personnel) from these films, compiling the indispensable encyclopedia that he has given us. For that reason, I think this list should be cherished more than other similar listings — this is the work of a man who has almost seen everything! - EK

By my reckoning the first ever sound film of a jazz performance was produced in 1922, a short featuring pianist Eubie Blake. Therefore, faced with almost 100 years of world cinema and taking a degree of masochistic pleasure in sticking my neck out I have managed with considerable difficulty to reduce untold millions of feet of celluloid to a necessarily subjective choice of 10 favourite titles, undoubtedly quirky but hopefully not pretentious. Try and see them if you can - they all have much to offer both intellectually and emotionally.

David Meeker

Surprise Boogie (1956), a Short Jazz Film by Albert Pierru

Created by scratching the emulsion and painting on raw film, the fantastically joyous short Surprise Boogie (1956) is an homage to the 1949 Begone Dull Care (image by Norman McLaren, music by Oscar Peterson Trio), the latter known as the most famous example of abstract jazz animation. Conceived as an audiovisual jam session of colours, patterns, forms and volumes on celluloid stripe, Surprise Boogie is the work of filmmaker Albert Pierru who was known for his love for jazz music on which he made various shorts, all using the same method of "camera-less" filmmaking, painting directly on film.

View the film here, courtesy of the Cinémathèque française:

David Meeker's Ten Favourite Jazz Recordings

David Meeker, the author of world's most comprehensive jazz and film encyclopedia (regularly updated and available online at the website of the Library of Congress) and the former Head of Acquisitions in the National Film Archive (now British Film Institute's archive) has shared with me his list of ten favourite jazz recordings which I'm sharing with you here. They are sorted in chronological order.


1
Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra (1928)
There Ain't No Sweet Man That's Worth The Salt Of My Tears by Fred Fisher.

4 Photographs of Jimmie Lunceford in the 1930s

Courtesy of University of North Texas, four raw negative scans of photographs by Byrd Moore, taken of Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra in Fort Worth, Texas, possibly in the 1930s.

"Earl Hines Celebrates 20 Years in Show Business"

Earl Hines

All-American News was a weekly newsreel produced for the African-American audiences, the first of its kind in the US. At the beginning, it served the war propaganda machine by encouraging the black Americans to join the war effort but in the process it managed to capture some other aspects of African-American life, including arts.

Some of these weekly items are available on the website of the Library of Congress. Surprisingly, jazz gets very little mention in them, even though the series ran until the 1950s. One exception is an episode from November 1944 which visits the legend of jazz piano, Earl "Fatha" Hines, catching up with him during his celebration of "twenty years in show business." There is a brief interview and scenes from cutting a cake. You can view this segment of All-American News#12 concerning Hines here:

VHS Diaries#1: Ellis Marsalis Trio

RIP Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. (November 14, 1934 – April 1, 2020)

Syndrome, a composition by New Orleans pianist and father to Wynton and Brandford Marsalis, Mr. Ellis Marsalis,  first appeared in one of his early albums.

Here, with the assistance of a relaxed, grooving trio he performs the same song at Bern Jazz Festival, 1997. I couldn't identify the bassist and drummer. If you know their names, please leave a comment.