Jammin' the Blues

Jammin' the Blues (1944)

*** (out of 4)

Jam session with some of the top Jazz musicians of the time including Barney Kessel, Lester Young, George Callender and Harry Edison. If you're a fan of Jazz then you'll really enjoy this short, which features some really funky sounds as well as a great song by Marie Bryant. It's a shame this only ran 11-minutes because it could have easily been expanded. A funny sidenote and a bit of reverse is that Barney Kessel is the only white person playing in the band. The director kept him in the shadows to hide the fact that he was white and also put berry juice on his hands.

I have seen this ten minute short several times on T.C.M.it is a swinging jam session featuring some of the GREATEST jazz musicians that every lived. It has been told that when they filmed this short at the Warner Bro.studio lot that some of the great actors with Warner Bro. such as Humphrey Bogart, Bettie Davis, Edward G. Robinson Etc. stopped what they where doing to hear this jam session through out the day. One damper on this short was the fact that Barney Kessell was filmed silhouetted so that a white musician was not identified playing with black musicians.

Wow, it is hard to believe this film was made in 1944. If it were released today, sixty years later, it would still be regarded as stylish and avant-garde. I caught this on a cable channel in the US called Turner Classic Movies (TCM). It was the lead off short in a series of musical shorts compiled to form a two or three hour special. I cannot stress how ahead of it's time this film was. The photography was very clever, such as using Lester Young's hat as a indefinable symbol in the opening shot, pulling back as Lester raises his head revealing his face. A "jam" session opens the short, Marie Bryant sings "On the Sunny Side of the Street" with velvety perfection, then another number which features jitterbug dancers. A good film to show today's artists that clever ideas didn't begin with their generation.

Good news for Jazz fans, I understand Rhino has released a compilation titled ‘Hollywood Swing & Jazz' comprised of numbers from these old musical shorts, which features, among others, the Marie Bryant number from this film.

Simply but imaginatively filmed studio-set performance short, a perfect match of music and images that defines the very coolness of cool and the hipness of hip. The precise visual and musical arrangements give the lie to its claim to be a record of a jam session: what it is, is a pop video - every bit as stylised and knowing as that implies, and all the better for it. Among the very best music films ever made, and almost certainly the most cinematic. These cats are solid gone, daddy-o ...

This short was nominated for an Academy Award and I wish it had won! Basically a filmed jam session between some very talented musicians, including Lester Young and Joe Jones, the music is incredible! Hollywood quite often embraced Jazz (particularly animation, believe it or not) but this is a rare look on film at an improvisational jam. This has been added to the Film Preservation list and deservedly so. TCM runs this as filler periodically and runs it every March sometime for its' "31 Days of Oscar" tribute. From downtown at the buzzer, swish, nothing but net and the shot's so smooth, the net barely moved. Most solidly and highly recommended!!!