Improvisation (second part)
DVD Booklet
Jammin’ The Blues
Some of the most vivid and rare portrait of jazz musicians in action during the 1930s and 1940s came in the form of the Hollywood movies and the so-called “soundies”, stand-alone shorts of the big bands that were packed with feature films.

Frequently, popular bands such as those of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Woody Herman, Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller were the biggest draws of the otherwise mostly forgettable films in which they appeared. However, as valuable as these music sequences 60 and 70 years ago might be, they are remembered partly for their Hollywood embellishment rather than for probing for the music itself or its creators on a deeper level.