Warner Bros. Big Band, Jazz and Swing on DVD

[medjuck]

I used to have this set on Lazer Disc. Think I may have to get it again on DVD.

Warner Bros. Big Band, Jazz and Swing" reviewed

What Swing-Era Audiences Saw and Heard

An essential DVD package of 64 music one-reelers from 1930 to 1947

by Will Friedwald

Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2010

Some people cry at the end of "Gone With the Wind." Others lose it when Bambi's mother

buys the farm. Me, I'm always moved to tears by the first two minutes of "Jammin'

the Blues." This remarkable 10-minute film from 1944 is quite easily the most amazing

visual representation of the jazz aesthetic that I've ever seen -- whether through

painting, dance, film or whatever.

Even the main titles of "Jammin' the Blues" (a collaboration between producer and

concert impresario Norman Granz and director-photographer Gjon Mili) capture the

spirit of jazz: We see what looks like the abstract image of two concentric circles,

which tilt upward and are revealed to be the top of the porkpie hat worn by tenor-saxophone

pioneer Lester Young. That's one of the things jazz is all about right there -- turning

the abstract into the concrete and then back again. Young then puts the horn to his

lips and plays a single chorus of the most exquisite blues you ever heard: so cool,

so effortless, his fingers barely move across the pads. He even continues to hold

a lit cigarette (I hope it's tobacco) in his left hand. His solo is incredibly restrained

but so full of passion and feeling, the whole of the human condition in a mere 12

bars, that I find my cheeks are wet long before the director cuts to trumpeter Harry

"Sweets" Edison for the next solo.

"Jammin' the Blues" is merely the climax of the "Warner Bros. Big Band, Jazz and

Swing Short Subject Collection," an essential package of six DVDs. To be sure, none

of the other films included here can quite match "Jammin' the Blues" either musically

or visually, but they all document brilliant music from a high point in American

culture. As with "Jammin'," these films show that music in those days was almost

as much a matter of image as of sound. Throughout the swing era, the big bands spent

much of their time playing live stage shows in movie theaters. These one-reel shorts

are a fairly good representation of what those performances were like, and show that

the big bands almost always did more than just sit there and play.

The 64 one-reel short films included here, from 1930 to 1947, show that dance, visual

comedy and various kinds of shtick were always part of the presentation. The most

valuable entries in the new package are the many films of African-American bands

and singers of the '30s, even though the visual representation of those artists would

hardly be regarded as racially sensitive by 21st-century standards. The 1933 "Smash

Your Baggage" features a rather amazing cast, all costumed, alas, as Pullman porters,

which makes the film somewhat embarrassing today. That aside, "Smash Your Baggage"

is seven sensational minutes of sheer entertainment: Even the musicians (including

the young trumpeter Roy Eldridge, trombonist Dicky Wells and drummer Sid Catlett)

move like dancers as they play, while the dancers literally fly through the air,

and blues shouter Mabel Scott moans "Stop the Sun, Stop the Moon" like a woman possessed.

The short never stops moving, even to catch its breath.

Those bands with dynamic high-energy front men, like Cab Calloway and Louis Prima,

are the best served. Not all the ensembles here are quite so animated, but the music

is always top-notch. The package could serve as a general primer and introduction

to the Swing Era, and illustrates how the reach of the big bands extended into every

nook and cranny of American pop, even in terms of ethnic markets. There are bands

oriented toward straight-ahead swing (Jimmy Dorsey), the blues (Woody Herman), New

Orleans jazz (Prima), European classical music (Jan Savitt), country-western music

(Spade Cooley, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys), Afro-Cuban music (Desi Arnaz),

Hawaiian music (Ray Kinney), modern jazz (Stan Kenton), and novelty and comedy (Borrah

Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals). The 1942 short starring Minevitch is almost

scary: This is a frighteningly funny ensemble featuring midgets, underage ballerinas,

and the world's biggest tenor (not to mention black men and white women performing

on the same stage at the same time -- virtually unheard of in 1942), all blowing

into mouth organs of every shape and size.

You never know who's going to turn up here, including such hard-to-see vocalists

as Adelaide Hall, the Boswell Sisters, and a 7-year-old Sammy Davis Jr. singing with

the legendary Ethel Waters. TV patriarch Ozzie Nelson is shown in his original career

as the personable leader of an excellent, underappreciated swing band; Broadway dancer

Eunice Healy (who was profiled here in the Journal last October) rates a specialty

number in front of an all-female swing orchestra; Artie Shaw plays a clarinet solo

with society bandleader Roger Wolfe Kahn in 1932 and then leads his own pace-setting

ensemble seven years later. Even with six discs and 64 entries, there's still more

out there, including two amazing films from 1929 featuring future stars Benny Goodman,

Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Eddie Condon and Pee Wee Russell in bands led by Ben

Pollack and Red Nichols that, for some reason, were not included.

Most of the set is, not surprisingly, straight-down-the-middle dance music, like

the smooth and stylish sounds of Hal Kemp, which shows that even the so-called commercially

oriented "sweet bands" (also known as "Mickey Mouse bands") of the period were highly

innovative and musical. If you ever wondered what it would sound like to hear four

clarinets playing into megaphones, or Latin percussion combined with oboe and bass

clarinet, now you know. This is a Mickey Mouse band that could open for Sun Ra.

[Pete C]

The 1942 short starring Minevitch is almost

scary: This is a frighteningly funny ensemble featuring midgets, underage ballerinas,

and the world's biggest tenor (not to mention black men and white women performing

on the same stage at the same time -- virtually unheard of in 1942), all blowing

into mouth organs of every shape and size.

I'm sold!

[Pete C]

Link to product & description

20% off through Monday. It's a Warner Archive item, so note that what you get are DVD-R.

Edited May 27, 2010 by Pete C

[Dave Garrett]

I used to have this set on Lazer Disc. Think I may have to get it again on DVD.

Warner Bros. Big Band, Jazz and Swing" reviewed

I haven't done a comparison of the titles on the LDs and the DVDs, but if I'm not mistaken the DVD set contains a selection of shorts from both of the LD box sets that were released (Swing! Swing! Swing! and Vitaphone Shorts: A 70th Anniversary Celebration, aka Cavalcade of Vitaphone Shorts vols. 1 and 2). The second LD set was very hard to find, and supposedly only a few hundred copies were pressed. It was practically unobtainable if you hadn't gotten it when it was first released, and I was very happy to find a brand-new copy buried in the racks at Lazer Blazer in LA.

I still have the LDs, so I haven't felt compelled to get the new DVD, but it's definitely a must-see collection of gems.

[medjuck]

Just got this for Father's Day. (I left more than a few hints.) Looks great but am disappointed that there is absolutely no documentation or information except that on the original films.