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

Radio Hawkins#14

راديو هاوكينز: جاز براي ايران

اپيزود چهاردهم

 تقديم به روي هينز

مضامين اين برنامه

تنهايي، تلفن، مِه، خداييش من آدم خوبي برات نبودم؟، سيب حوا، ديروز، طبيعت، بلوز، جاهايي كه نبوده ايم

موزيسين هاي اين برنامه

جان لي هوكر، روي هِينز، لويي آرمسترانگ و الا فيتزجرالد، دوك الينگتن، ارل گارنر، تل فارلو، باك كليتن، جيمي راشينگ، وين شورتر، راجر كل اِوِي

Classics 1422: Red Norvo Trio 1950-51

Classics 1422
Red Norvo
1950-1951
Release Date: 2006
Rating: A

Other notable musicians in this CD: Charles Mingus, Tal Farlow.

label(s): Savoy, Discovery
Number of sessions: 3
Unissued materials: None
Track Highlights: I've Got You Under My Skin, I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me, Move, Godchild.


Other issue or reissues:
The Red Norvo Trio (Savoy SJL 2212)
Red Norvo Trio, Vol. 2 (Discovery DL 3018)
Red Norvo - Move! (Savoy MG 12088)
I also hold a copy of a LP in my collection called Rare Transcription which includes 29 tracks from the same period.


About the period: Throughout the '40s and well into the '50s, Norvo seemed willing and eager to grow with the brisk and somewhat challenging patterns of the new music. Some of these rapid-fire bop lines might evoke the unprecedented velocities attainable on newly constructed highways, or maybe even convey a taste of Benzedrine.

music from almost the same period,  1950-52