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The Big Bands. Volume 1, The Soundies, and: Harlem Roots. Volume 1, The Big Bands, and: The Spike Jones Story (review)

2008; Music Library Association; Volume: 65; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/not.0.0054

1534-150X

Larry Appelbaum,

Theater, Performance, and Music History

Reviewed by: The Big Bands. Volume 1, The Soundies, and: Harlem Roots. Volume 1, The Big Bands, and: The Spike Jones Story Larry Appelbaum The Big Bands. Volume 1, The Soundies. DVD. [San Diego, CA]: Storyville Films, 2007. 26011. $11.98. Harlem Roots. Volume 1, The Big Bands. DVD. [San Diego, CA]: Storyville Films, 2004. 26000. $11.98. The Spike Jones Story. DVD. [San Diego, CA]: Storyville Films, 2007. 26024. $11.98. The name Storyville has special resonance in the history of American jazz. First, it was the name for the red light district in New Orleans from 1897 to 1917, where many early jazz musicians worked. Secondly, there were several jazz clubs called Storyville, including a famous one in Boston owned by impresario George Wein. Since 1950, it is also the name of a jazz and blues record label started by the Danish collector Karl Emil Knudsen. Up until his death in 2003, Knudsen licensed, recorded and released music that suited his tastes; mostly blues, swing, and mainstream jazz artists like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ben Webster. In addition to the record label, Storyville Films has begun to reissue DVDs of these artists, packaging performance footage, documentaries, and compilations of short films known as Snader Telescriptions and Soundies. Soundies, the single-song films created for coin-operated Panoram jukeboxes, offer a fascinating window into the American music culture of the 1940s. The Big Bands. Volume 1, The Soundies, for example, presents ten popular bands of the day miming and lip-syncing to their hits. In general, the vocal numbers hold up best; a young June Christy actually singing in tune with Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, Tony Pastor on a barn dance set blowing tenor sax and shouting “Oh, Marie,” a charming and undeservedly obscure Peggy Mann breaking hearts with “Deep Purple” backed by Larry Clinton’s Band, and The King Sisters in matching white gowns harmonizing on “St. Louis Blues” with mind-bending Alvino Rey on slide guitar. There are also moments of unintentional humor as Kenton bassist Eddie Safranski hopelessly attempts to mime to his previously recorded improvised solo on “Southern Scandal.” But the strangest of these Soundies is the corny-surreal “Where Has My Little Dog Gone” by Claude Thornhill’s Orchestra. This wonderfully ridiculous 1942 film features dancing girls traipsing with bizarre little fake dogs, not to mention a vendor serving a hot dog with little wings that flies away with visible strings! Some of the most artistically successful Soundies are found on Harlem Roots. Volume 1, The Big Bands, especially the five numbers by Duke Ellington’s Orchestra from 1942. Two of the songs are drawn from Ellington’s ground-breaking musical Jump for Joy; Ivy Anderson’s definitive torch song “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good,” and the nonsensical novelty tune “Bli Blip,” complete with cute mugging and hip dance moves from Marie Bryant and Paul White. Ellington’s handsome baritone Herb Jeffries sings “Flamingo” intercut with a startling dance sequence by Janet Collins and Talley Beatty of the Katherine Dunham dance troupe. “Cottontail,” based on the chord changes of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” features tenor saxophonist Ben Webster at his brutish best inspiring spectacular acrobatics from Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. “Jam Session,” (actually Ellington’s “C-Jam Blues”), highlights several of the important soloists in Ellington’s Orchestra. In a revealing bit of subtext, the band continues to jam while Ellington woos three adoring female fans. Elsewhere on the disc, Cab Calloway “reaps the righteous riff” in nine jive-heavy numbers with fleeting glimpses of bassist Milt Hinton, trombonist Tyree Glenn and trumpeter Shad Collins. There are also two Soundies with Count Basie’s Orchestra, most notably “Take Me Back Baby” featuring a dream sequence with the band’s rotund, behind-the-beat blues shouter, Jimmy Rushing. Many of the Soundies are not without stereotypes, though perhaps not as cringe-inducing as the Vitaphone shorts of the previous generation. Lucky Millinder, for example, led one of the most sophisticated bands of the day (and one of the few integrated ones), yet in one Soundie they play [End Page 154] “I Want a Big Fat Mama” dressed as hillbilly...