
13 Oct 1989

The Fabulous Baker Boys
The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers at their best along with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra performing for this "Hot Chocolate" musical short.
Self (uncredited)
Self
Self (uncredited)
13 Oct 1989
The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.
10 Sep 2021
Although the free jazz movement of the 1960s and '70s was much maligned in some jazz circles, its pioneers - brilliant talents like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane - are today acknowledged as central to the evolution of jazz as America's most innovative art form. FIRE MUSIC showcases the architects of a movement whose radical brand of improvisation pushed harmonic and rhythmic boundaries, and produced landmark albums like Coleman's Free Jazz: A Collective Inspiration and Coltrane's Ascension. A rich trove of archival footage conjures the 1960s jazz scene along with incisive reflections by critic Gary Giddins and a number of the movement's key players.
15 Sep 1988
Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least one movie and at least one jail cell (for drug possession). And, we see the aged Baker, detached, indifferent, his face a ruin. Includes interviews with his children and ex-wife, women companions, and musicians.
20 Aug 1937
Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.
09 Jul 1945
1945 Soundies musical short starring Merle Travis
01 Jan 1942
1942 Soundies musical short starring The King's Men
07 Apr 1941
Les Brown and His Orchestra perform "My Lost Horizon" with Doris Day
23 Jan 1942
Helen Huntley and Stan Kenton and His Orchestra perform "Jammin' in the Panoram."
30 Mar 1942
Lew Hearn and Phyllis Kenny perform "Deep in the Heart of Texas"
01 Jan 1943
Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra perform "Au Reet"
21 Apr 1941
Doris Day sings "Is It Love or Is It Conscription?" with Les Brown and His Orchestra
04 Oct 1943
"When Hitler Kicks the Bucket" is sung by Toni Lane. The lyrics recount all the delightful things that will happen on the day of Hitler's funeral.
01 Jan 1965
A fiery, lithe dancer is stripping in a cage on a jungle set, scored to intense crime jazz.
11 Apr 2023
The story of the black, gay origins of rock n' roll. It explodes the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard's complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon's life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions.
01 Jan 1963
Chet Baker silently wanders through an Antonioniesque landscape in a Felliniesque state of wonderment as his improvised trumpet solos alternate between earnestly offering the obvious and mocking the artiness of the whole affair.
31 Aug 1951
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.
09 Dec 2023
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.
04 Oct 2003
Director — and piano player — Clint Eastwood explores his life-long passion for piano blues, using a treasure trove of rare historical footage in addition to interviews and performances by such living legends as Pinetop Perkins and Jay McShann, as well as Dave Brubeck and Marcia Ball.
08 Dec 1941
Count Basie does a little rhyming rapping before going into this Benny Goodman instrumental composition. While he's playing, plenty of couples are jitterbugging constantly until, one by one, they get tired and start to fall down on the floor.
Sylvia Froos features in this Vitaphone short from 1941.