Plot: What’s it about?
This disc is the first volume in Kino’s Hollywood Rhythm series and showcases the best of jazz & blues. The disc comes loaded with all sorts of musical shorts, which were usually used to whet the audience’s tastes before a feature film was shown. The shorts collected here come mostly from Paramount’s archives and represent some of the most beloved musical shorts around, as some very famous faces show up in them. The performers include Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and a host of other talented folks. I’d seen a few of these pieces before and to be honest, I was looking forward to seeing some more of them here. Some have comedic moments and some are just terrific musical performances, but all are fun to watch, even after all these years. I think the pieces are good on their own or viewed together, but I think I will use them as teasers before the film, when I have company over, just like the real cinema used to. You’ll find a wealth of more than solid musical shorts on this disc and for the price, I think this release is more than worth a look. Below is a list of the shorts contained on this disc.
1. A Rhapsody In Black and Blue (1932, Louis Armstrong)
2. A Bundle of Blues (1933, Duke Ellington)
3. Hi-De-Ho (1933, Cab Calloway)
4. Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1941, Fats Waller)
5. Symphony In Black (1935, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday)
6. Jitterbug Party (1934, Cab Calloway)
7. St. Louis Blues (1929, Bessie Smith)
8. Hoagy Carmichael (1939, Jack Teagarden)
9. Ol’ King Cotton (1930, George Dewey Washington)
10. Black and Tan Fantasy (Duke Ellington and Fredi Washington and Arthur Whetsol)
11. Those Blues (1932, Vincent Lopez)
Video: How does it look?
The shorts are shown in their intended aspect ratios, whether that’s full frame or windowboxed. These are pretty old pieces and the quality varies from short to short, but I was pleased with the overall visual presentation. Most of the prints looked very clean and showed only minimal debris, which was a bit of a surprise. Some of the materials don’t look that good, but none of the shorts look bad, so I don’t think anyone will be let down here. The contrast seems right on the money and detail is high, a very solid effort from Kino here.
Audio: How does it sound?
The mono tracks handle the musical numbers as best it can, which means the range is very limited. But you can’t expect that much from mono and as far as it goes, the audio here is in fine form overall. I detected little in terms of harshness or other age related issues, which is impressive, since these shorts have some years behind them. I think given the age and nature of these shorts, this mono track is quite good and handles all the material’s needs.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This disc includes a bonus musical short titled Jazz A La Cuba, with Don Aspiazu.
