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.

Stop For Bud (1963)

In 1963, a short experimental film was made about Bud Powell. Half a century later, some musings on that Danish film and on Bud himself.

Bud means the wind if you are a Farsi speaker. Thus, for me, the name defines the music. Although he is one of my favorite pianists in jazz—whom I discovered through the Bud Plays Bird LP—he is never as fiery as one would expect from the wind. He is a bipolar giant. When playing I Remember Clifford at the Golden Circle club in Sweden, it seems the music might stop at any second. The melody blurs. The harmonies become foggy. The beat tends to get lost, and then, a moment later, found again. The seemingly dying music continues for nearly nine minutes. Through Clifford Brown's memory, Bud is lamenting himself, his very existence.

Big Ben: Ben Webster in Europe (1967)

BIG BEN: BEN WEBSTER IN EUROPE
Netherlands, 1967 Regia: Johan van der Keuken
F.: Johan van der Keuken. M.: Ruud Bernard, Johan van der Keuken. Int.: Ben Webster, Don Byas, Cees Slings, Michiel de Ruyteras, Michiel de Ruyteras, Peter Ympa. Prod.: Johan van der Keuken.

An intimate, curious portrait of American ex-pat tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, shot between March and June 1967 in Amsterdam, where he eventually died in 1972. Though the title suggests outright praise, van der Keuken goes deeper into Webster’s sound and character by creating visual metaphors (a conversation about the blues cuts to a shot of a knife), relating anecdotes and giving a brief history of the man. Toying with the possibilities of the interplay between sound and image, the film treats Webster as one of the architects of tenor sax by visiting a saxophone factory, where industrial noise subsides allowing us to hear Webster’s luscious vibrato sound. Treated with warmth and respect, this former member of Duke Ellington’s band is seen doing various activities such as cooking, talking to his hospitable landlady, shooting pool and using his 8mm camera. When, later on, van der Keuken incorporates excerpts from what are presumably Webster’s films, jazz and cinema seem even more interwoven than first assumed. (Ehsan Khoshbakht)

Willis Conover Interviews Gil Evans

Possibly taped in February 1968 but broadcast on May 16, 1968, this is a short, informal chat between the DJ Willis Conover and jazz composer/arranger Gil Evans." Here, Evans mentions working on a new recording with Miles Davis which is most likely the one known as The Falling Water sessions (released only decades later in the Evans/Davis Columbia set.) Evans sounds laid-back but not very candid. There's an interesting reminiscing by Conover about a meeting between Harold Arlen, Evans and Friedrich Gulda (at 5') but even more interesting is Conover's mentioning of a screening of The Sound of Jazz (feat. Miles Davis/Gil Evans) in Russia which he had personally attended a year before.

The source is here.

Willis Conover's Eulogy for Duke Ellington

This is mainly a detailed (and moving) description of Ellington's funeral. From a 1974 VOA's jazz hour broadcast.


This was the source.

The CBS Tribute to Duke Ellington, 1974

Broadcast on the day that the Duke died, featuring concert footage and interview with colleagues and band members such as Ella Fitgerald, Sony Greer, Russell Procope, Billy Taylor and Stanley Dance, this is a newly digitised tape.

Forgive the silly John Wayne clip and the sillier ads popping up which are good reminders of the crude world in which Ellington was creating his sophisticated and inimitable art.