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