At The Jazz Band Ball: Early Hot Jazz, Song And Dance

From Rare Original Film Masters (1925 - 1933)

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, an 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 stare 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 stars his first recording for Columbia Phonograph Co.