Jazz & Film (Noir)
The two subjects jazz and film have been used to promote each other ever since the beginning of their respective histories; it almost seems to have happened simultaneously.
We have to keep in mind that the first long movie using sound – from a record played behind the silver screen – was in fact The Jazz Singer from 1927, featuring Al Jolson (in blackface). The following thoughts and short list of movies will elaborate on the subject.
Film buff Scott Yanow in his Jazz on Film states that starting in 1927 and continuing into the 1950s, there were three basic types of films that utilized jazz: full-length Hollywood movies with brief appearances by jazz musicians or jazz shows as part of the plot, all-Black movies made specifically for Black audiences (though only a few featured jazz performances), and special music shorts.
You can check any of these at the International Movie Database.
Since there should be some criteria on what movie should be labeled a “jazz movie,” here are mine: Either the story or the main protagonists should be active in a musical/jazz environment or the majority of the action should take place in a musical/jazz environment. Having a jazz soundtrack then would not qualify the movie for the list. So Elevator to the Gallows, coming with a fantastic soundtrack performed by Miles Davis, would not qualify as a jazz movie.
Additionally, a similar option is possible, and again, I refer to my book: a movie should also suffice if its structure or mechanisms reveal the jazz heritage, meaning the presence of repetition (of scenes), improvisation (of already displayed scenes) as well as the representation of the soloist with or against the group in a stage of free commenting, voicing of ideas or speeding up/slowing down the process of communication within.
So.
But how do you do that in film? You do it by dramatization, long scenes with instrumental (music, that is) exchange; so, very much like a novelist would try to do it.
However, I will not include the huge number of soundies (otherwise of high documentary value), since this short – and incomplete list – refers to full-length motion pictures only. Nevertheless, there are some films that today would be rated a musical; and back in the 1930s and 1940s a little music (or even a whole lot of it) was well received by the movie audience. This way, you could follow a plot AND hear some of the stars perform in one sitting.
The majority of the movies was directed by American directors and shot and released in the USA.
Please check my book review section here for excellent texts on the connection of Jazz (as a soundtrack) within the great genre of Film Noir!
I shall not enlarge on the (often very good) short talkies of the 1940s. (However, there are many websites that concentrate on that very genre.) Fortunately there is a huge vault of key scenes and band scenes on youtube and the like.
A SONG IS BORN, Director: Howard Hawks, USA 1948
AH! QUELLE EQUIPE , D: Roland Quignon, F 1957
ALL NIGHT LONG, D: Basil Dearden, UK 1962
BENNY GOODMAN STORY, THE, D: Valentine Davies, USA 1956
BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE, THE, D: Michael Curtiz, USA 1965
BEWARE, D: Bud Pollard, USA 1946
BIG BROADCAST OF 1937, D: Mitchell Leisen, USA 1936
BIRD, D: Clint Eastwood, USA 1988
BIRTH OF THE BLUES, D: Victor Schertzinger, USA 1941
CABIN IN THE SKY, D: Vincente Minelli, USA 1943
DER PASTOR MIT DER JAZZTROMPETE (The parson with the jazz trumpet), D: Hans Schott-Schöbinger, D 1962
FÜNF VON DER JAZZBAND (The five lads of the jazzband), D: Erich Engel, D 1932
CONNECTION, THE, D: Shirley Clarke, USA 1961
COTTON CLUB, THE, D: Francis Ford Coppola, USA 1984
CRIMSON CANARY, THE, D: John Hoffman, USA 1945
FABULOUS BAKER BOYS, THE, D: Steve Kloves, USA 1989
GENE KRUPA STORY, THE, D: Don Weis, USA 1959
GIG, THE, D: Frank D. Gilroy, USA 1985
HELEN MORGAN STORY, THE, D: Michael Curtiz, USA 1957
HEY BOY! HEY GIRL!, D: David Lowell Rich, USA 1959
HIGH SOCIETY, D: Charles Walters, USA 1956
JAZZ SINGER, THE, D: Alan Crosland, USA 1927
KANSAS CITY, D: Robert Altman, USA 1996
KING OF JAZZ, THE, D: John Murray Anderson, USA 1930
LADY SINGS THE BLUES, D: Sidney J. Furie, USA 1972
MO’ BETTER BLUES, D.: Spike Lee, USA 1990
NIGHTMARE, D: Maxwell Shane, USA 1956.
PARIS BLUES, D: Martin Ritt, USA 1961
PETE KELLY’S BLUES, D: Jack Webb, USA 1955
ROUND MIDNIGHT, D: Bertrand Tavernier, 1986
SOME LIKE IT HOT, D: Billy Wilder, 1959
ST. LOUIS BLUES, D: Allen Reisner, USA 1958
STORMY WEATHER, D: Andrew L. Stone, USA 1943
SWEET AND LOWDOWN, D: Woody Allen, USA 1999
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, D: Alexander Mackendrick, USA 1957
SYNCOPATION, D: William Dieterle, USA 1942
TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, THE, D: Anthony Minghella, USA 1999
YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, D: Michael Curtiz, USA 1950
Posted by Dr. A. Ebert