Jazz at the movies

[Bobby G]

Oh yes, Alabama could be a very moody piece of film music. Very rarely is tragedy evoked so well in a piece of music, it's up there with Tchaikovski at his most bleak.

Cheers, Bob

 

[tris]

I hear you about Brum!! Teletebbies also had this quintet that played greally grat jazz arragments of nursy rhyms.

Many 70's carttons such as "Garfeild" & "Peanuts" have great electric jazz.

I myself have a very soft spot for the music in the Tom and Jerry cartoons... ahh the hours wasted learning some of those amazing phrases and runs!

 

[lb]

'Alabama' crops up in Spike Lee's 'Malcolm X' according to imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104797/soundtrack - plenty of other bits of jazz on there too). I also seem to remember the opening of 'Acknowledgement' featuring in a Lee film.

And yes, Rollins did do a lot of stuff for 'Alfie' - he worked closely with the director on the music side of things. Oliver Nelson helped with the arrangements too.

 

[quercy]

Thanks to the wonders of Google I've found the above mentioned British Thriller, and it's even more of a feast than I remembered.

Here's a quote from the MovieGrooves web site about the CD

" Fabulous jazz soundtrack to the much loved British thriller from 1961 starring Richard Attenborough, Patrick McGoohan and an all-star cast of jazz musicians.

A reworking of Shakespeare's Othello, All Night Long tells the story of rivalry and scheming amongst a number of jazz musicians at a London party.

It's notable due for the fact that the cast list reads like a jazz-lover's dream ensemble; Dave Brubeck, John Dankworth, Tubby Hayes, Charles Mingus, John Scott and more."

Looks like both sooundtrack and DVD are hard to find though.

 

[martin_br]

Wow!

A must have if its available...

 

[Bobby G]

Wow, Quercy, that looks worth seeing! Dear dear Dickie, and Paddy 'Prisoner' McGoohan, in the same film, with that soundtrack, I want it!

Jazz in cartoons, part 63; some of the older Peanuts cartoons have some jazzy stuff going on in there, I remember one particular episode only too well (a trick'n'treat story) as my daughter Abby had it, and the Wizard of Oz, taped off the telly on one cassette and watched it what seems like several hundred times when she was about 3. And 4. And 5.

I also second tris's love of Tom and Jerry music, but it has to be the old ones from the 40's and 50's. The amount of work, with the comparitively primitive technology, that went into producing, scoring and synching those cartoons was phenomenonal.

Cheers, Bob

 

[martin_br]

http://tinyurl.com/yhryu8

For those with a credit card... :cry:


Or direct in stock from German Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/ygyn56

(URLS tinied by Admin)

 

[rhysonsax]

King Pleasure and the Biscuit Boys were the band on Teletubbies doing the jazzy versions of nursery rhymes. I saw the episode where they did the Grand Old Duke of York and it was great. Best thing is that they always repeat that bit of Teletubbies "Again, again" !

KP & the Biscuit Boys http://www.bigbearmusic.com/kingp/home.html
are great to see live and have an excellent sax player in Boysie Battrum and the King himself is no mean tenor and bari player. I got talking to Boysie at a gig and I think he said he was working as an accountant until he was rescued for stardom with KP.

More of a jump and jive band than out-and-out jazz band but who cares about labels anyway.

Rhys

 

[tris]

ryhsonsax!!!

Many thanks!! I have had to endure all the vidoes. KP did a great version of "Hickory Dicory Dock" with just him and keys...

Playing Sheffield soon... hmmmmm

 

[Jules]

Check out Robert Altman's movie Kansas City for some great jazz/blues including a superb sax duel between Joshua Redman and Thingy Carter + a good recreation of Big Joe Turner at the height of his powers. Another good jazz movie- The Cotton Club.

 

[Bobby G]

Aww, Thingy Carter, he was the best.

I'm starting to get memories now, despite my near blank at the start of the thread - didn't quite a lot of old b&w movies feature cameos by people such as Cab Calloway, who I suppose in a way was as much 'entertainer' as jazzer (nothing wrong with that), and surely Louis must have popped up somewhere.

Not forgetting, of course, the marvellous scene with Count Basie in Blazing Saddles.

Cheers, Bob

 

[quercy]

Louis is of course in High Society, most notable for squandering various talents (including Sinatra) and being not as good as The Philadelphia Story, of which it was a remake. I'm pretty sure he also featured heavily in a 40s 'black' hollywood film but can't recall the title.

Another forgotten gem (?) from my record collection - the MJQ soundtrack for a Roger Vadim movie called 'No Sun In Venice' . Never seen the movie, but the MJQ make me want to nod off anyway.

Does anyone know who played the tenor for Tony Curits in Some Like It Hot?

 

[Rogerb]

After loving High Society, when I saw it in '57 and several times since, I subsequently saw The Philadelphia Story and was totally disappointed, especially as it had such good reviews. It just seemed to me to be completely miscast, and lines which sounded funny from Sinatra, Holm, Crosby, Kelly et al, just didn't work for me from Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn & James Stewart.
(And no Satchmo, or Cole Porter!!)

Trivia: the words of "Well Did You Evah?" were *quite* different in the film from the musical show. 🙂

I'm told, by my sax teacher who knew one of 'the band', that Sonny R turned-up for rehearsals of 'Alfie' and said to the other musicians "The first number goes like this...." and played through the score, expecting them just to pick it up... no arrangements provided. 😱

 

[quercy]

We'll have to disagree about this one Roger - that's the trouble with you younger fellers! 😛

 

[Rogerb]

Quercy wrote:
We'll have to disagree about this one Roger - that's the trouble with you younger fellers! 😛

Maybe if I'd seen 'em t'other way around, although I cannot visualise it!
And I *was* only 17 when I first saw HS 😀

 

[howell68]

Has anyone mentioned 'play Misty for me' where Clint Eastwood plays a jazz DJ? Also have to mention a documentary which my Dad was involved in producing following altoist Bruce Turner and some other british jazzers on the road. Can't remember the name though!

 

[Rogerb]

howell68 wrote:
Has anyone mentioned 'play Misty for me' where Clint Eastwood plays a jazz DJ? Also have to mention a documentary which my Dad was involved in producing following altoist Bruce Turner and some other british jazzers on the road. Can't remember the name though!

Was it jazz? I'd have said it was 'easy listening', but it was a long time ago I last saw it, and there wasn't much DJing in it, was there?

 

[lee_]

There was a movie out in the US about 2000 called "The Tic Code". It was about a child piano prodogy who gets help dealing with his Tourette's Syndrome from a jazz saxman (Gregory Hines), who also has it. The film was thoroughly panned, but I thought it was okay, and the jazz was great.

 

[spike]

Quercy wrote: I suddenly remembered that I had a 45 of tracks from the Mulligan movie and dug it out. It's actually 'I Want To Live' starring Susan Hayward. The Soundtrack was by Johnny Mandel, an unsung hero, and although Mulligan is not on the soundtrack per se his group features in 'club' scenes in the movie and has tracks on the soundtrack album, which is available on Amazon (com). Highly recommended movie and soundtrack.

Thanks for jogging my memory - because -
It came on German TV late last night - in German of course - Great movie, the most jazz is at the beginning in the club scenes as you say, with Gerry miming very out of sync to playback, some nice bits of dialogue where the heroine refers to shelly manne and near the end on death row talking to the nurse and as some jazz comes on the radio she says "Hey that's Gerry Mulligan, he's great, I know all his records off by heart." and ten minutes later she's in the gas chamber. Very entertaining, Susan Hayward as Barbara Graham in black and white. was worth staying up for, definately seen it before but that was years ago.

gruss - spike

 

[Bobby G]

Mmm.... Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart... Mmmmm