Martha Tilton sings in this Soundies film from 1941, with Slate Brothers, and Ben Pollack and His Orchestra accompanying.
Social & External
Nurse / Singer
It’s the second semester of junior year for Pierce “Sparni” Sparnroft, a gifted jazz vibraphonist studying at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Sparni’s prospects on the vibes were rejuvenated by their new professor, the world-renowned Steve Nelson, and are to be showcased during a student-driven recital in May 2023. But all the while, Sparni must face a crisis within.
The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.
Set in 1980s Melbourne, a disgraced jazz pianist attempts to get back into his former band by sabotaging his replacement.
Louis Jordan's Orchestra perform Jordan Jive. Setting is a canteen, with the orchestra and audience in US military uniform. The Swing Maniacs go through some extremely strenuous acrobatic dancing.
Two apartment house dwellers, although unrelated, share the same name. One is an older man with an appreciation for and love of classical music, while the other is a younger man addicted to swing music. The niece of the older man arrives for a visit and gets into the wrong apartment. Complications arise.
A teenaged shoeshine boy urgently tries to raise the remaining amount of money he needs to purchase a secondhand bugle before 6p.m.
Drummer Stanley Maxton moves to Los Angeles with dreams of opening his own jazz club, but falls in with a gangster and a nightclub dancer and ends up accused of her murder.
A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.
In 1927, a Kansas City, Missouri cornet player and his band perform nightly at a seedy speakeasy until a racketeer tries to extort them in exchange for protection.
A group of prisoners are encouraged to form a jazz band and vow to go straight when they are released to tour the country. However, the trumpets and clarinets are just a cover for a series of robberies. Musical comedy, starring British jazz star Acker Bilk as himself, alongside Jimmy Thompson and Jennifer Jayne.
Set in Harlem in 1947, this film is the story of Grandpa Kansas and his jazz band that set out to become world famous only to be thwarted by jealousy and envy - leaving behind shattered dreams and deep regrets. Though made at NYU, this film was produced under Walt Disney / Hollywood Pictures Discretionary Fund Program, and has won the top prize in multiple film competitions by respected institutions, including The Black American Cinema Society, Black Filmmaker Hall of Fame, and the Atlanta / Image Film Festival.
When a conniving female singer turns up dead, with the evidence pointing to the band’s drummer, jazz trumpeter Danny Brooks attempts to clear him—only to implicate himself and the rest of the band in the process. Can a jazz-loving police detective and Danny’s fiancée solve the case before the next downbeat?
A ferocious, bullying music teacher teaches a dedicated student.
In late 1950s Poland, jazzman Fabian returns from England and forms a swing big band that quickly rises to fame. Their glamorous new singer, the enigmatic Modesta, becomes both the group’s star and Fabian’s love interest. As their success begins to resemble a Hollywood musical, the authorities take a growing interest in their world of music and romance.
Jazz Icons: Art Blakey boasts an exceptional one-hour concert by Art Blakey from Paris in 1965. This performance showcases one of the few undocumented Blakey bands, the New Jazzmen, featuring the incomparable Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, as well as Jaki Byard on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, Nathan Davis on sax and, of course, Art Blakey on drums—truly a powerhouse quintet! Freddie Hubbard’s incendiary playing on “Blue Moon” and the blistering 24-minute version of his own “Crisis,” serves as a cogent reminder that he was one of the most innovative trumpeters in jazz history. Setlist: The Hub / Blue Moon / Crisis / NY Theme
Filmed in Chicago & finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland's polemical essay on the politics of music and race - a forecast of what he called "the death of jazz." A landmark moment in black film, foreseeing the civil unrest of subsequent decades, it also features the only known footage of visionary pianist Sun Ra from his beloved Chicago period. Featured are ample images of tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and the rest of Ra's Arkestra in Windy City nightclubs, all shot in glorious black & white.
after mourning the passing of his late wife, Bill finds the courage to travel to New York City and reconnect with his favorite mistress.
This jazz musical short has a comedy plot about marital infidelity. Bandleader Cab Calloway plays a ladies man who dates the wife (Fredi Washington) of a train porter who is frequently absent from home. Calloway and his Orchestra perform "Zaz-zuh-zaz" and "The Lady with the Fan" at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
The Marx Brothers help young Broadway hopefuls when they get mixed up with gangsters due to a tin of sardines containing Romanoff diamonds.
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Graced with a velvet voice, 21-year-old Violet Sanford heads to New York to pursue her dream of becoming a songwriter only to find her aspirations sidelined by the accolades and notoriety she receives at her "day" job as a barmaid at Coyote Ugly. The "Coyotes" as they are affectionately called tantalize customers and the media alike with their outrageous antics, making Coyote Ugly the watering hole for guys on the prowl.
The brothers Gibb perform their greatest hits from the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's including many songs written for and made hits by other artists but never recorded by the Bee Gees themselves.
In the town of Normal Valley, an eccentric magician named Maestro entertains the local children every day in his spooky mansion. One stormy night, the town's mayor leads a group of angry citizens to the mansion in an attempt to run Maestro out of town.
The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.
Sharpshooter Calamity Jane takes it upon herself to recruit a famous actress and bring her back to the local saloon, but jealousy soon gets in the way.
Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his masculinity is thrown into question following a violent brawl.
In 1950s Alabama, the owner of the Honeydripper juke joint finds his business dropping off and against his better judgment, hires a young electric guitarist in a last ditch effort to draw crowds during harvest time.
Aspiring small-town musician Chito is determined to make it big. When a clip of him performing one of his songs goes viral, he seizes the opportunity and pushes to carve out a place for himself in the new wave of Mexican-American music... and ultimately gets caught in a game more dangerous than anticipated.
After three bumbling Soviet agents fail in their mission to retrieve a straying Soviet composer from Paris, the beautiful, ultra-serious Ninotchka is sent to complete their mission and to retrieve them. She starts out condemning the decadent West, but gradually falls under its spell—with the help of an American movie producer. A remake of Ninotchka (1939).
A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.
Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.
Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.
The story of music legend Terri Hooley, a key figure in Belfast's punk rock scene. Hooley founded the Good Vibrations store from which a record label sprung, representing bands such as The Undertones, Rudi and The Outcasts.
A teenage rapper must use his musical talent to help a friend and win the girl of his dreams while overcoming self-doubt and the expectations of his strict religious parents.
A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan.
Three eclectic, never-quite-famous folk bands come together for the first time in decades following the death of their manager to put on an reunion concert in his honor, at the request of his son.
An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with a local band go on an unexpected and epic journey together through the decaying suburbs of the American Midwest.
