At The Jazz Band Ball
Early Hot Jazz, Song and Dance
From Rare Original Film Masters 1925-33
Yazoo 514; Video & DVD; Ordering Information

"The images are fascinating ... red hot music fills much
of the bill." - Billboard
"An exceptional hour-long tape of early hot music
covering everything from perhaps the first jazz solo
ever on film (1925) to Ellington's 1929 band."
- Entertainment Weekly

At the Jazz Band Ball brings together some of the greatest hot music, song and dance captured at the height of the jazz age and in the early days of sound film (1925-1933). Included are some of the giants of the period in their very best early performances: Duke Ellington's Cotton Club Orchestra in clips featuring solos and a floor show, and exuberant, youthful Louis Armstrong, Harlem's "Bo Jangles" Robinson doing his famous step dance, Bessie Smith's only screen performance, a rare clip of the Boswell Sisters harmonizing on a Louis Armstrong classic, and an instrumental from the Dorsey Brothers band with superb solos from Tommy and Jimmy. From L.A. based Fowler Studios comes film of radio star Charlie Wellman, Tessie Maize (a featured artist at Frank Sebastian's Cotton Club) and black-faced performer Ruby Darby. Among the many other clips included is an early (1925) De Forest Sound film of Ben Bernie's Orchestra in which under-appreciated reedman Jack Pettis contributes what is probably the first jazz solo on film.

And from the newsreels for the week of May 18, 1928, the title card read: JAZZ KING TEARS UP OLD CONTRACT. On stroke of twelve Paul Whiteman starts his first recording fro Columbia Phonograph Co. ...as Paul Whiteman's Orchestra moved from Victor to Columbia Records. Long considered lost, this newsreel story contains the only appearance of jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke in a sound film as Bix stands up and plays through an ensemble brass passage.