The Crimson Canary

A Little Jive Is Good for You

February 1941 •English

Martha Tilton sings in this Soundies film from 1941, with Slate Brothers, and Ben Pollack and His Orchestra accompanying.

Blues in the Night

November 1941 •English

A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.

Second Chorus

January 1941 •English

Danny O'Neill and Hank Taylor are rival trumpeters with the Perennials, a college band, and both men are still attending college by failing their exams seven years in a row. In the midst of a performance, Danny spies Ellen Miller who ends up being made band manager. Both men compete for her affections while trying to get the other one fired.

Jordan Jive

August 1944 •English

Louis Jordan's Orchestra perform Jordan Jive. Setting is a canteen, with the orchestra and audience in US military uniform. The Swing Maniacs go through some extremely strenuous acrobatic dancing.

Pete Kelly's Blues

July 1955 •English

In 1927, a Kansas City, Missouri cornet player and his band perform nightly at a seedy speakeasy until a racketeer tries to extort them in exchange for protection.

Band of Thieves

August 1962 •English

A group of prisoners are encouraged to form a jazz band and vow to go straight when they are released to tour the country. However, the trumpets and clarinets are just a cover for a series of robberies. Musical comedy, starring British jazz star Acker Bilk as himself, alongside Jimmy Thompson and Jennifer Jayne.

American Pop

February 1981 •English

The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.

Sparni

December 2023 •English

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.

The Cry of Jazz

March 1959 •English

Filmed in Chicago & finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland's polemical essay on the politics of music and race - a forecast of what he called "the death of jazz." A landmark moment in black film, foreseeing the civil unrest of subsequent decades, it also features the only known footage of visionary pianist Sun Ra from his beloved Chicago period. Featured are ample images of tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and the rest of Ra's Arkestra in Windy City nightclubs, all shot in glorious black & white.

Shoe Shine Boy

December 1943 •English

A teenaged shoeshine boy urgently tries to raise the remaining amount of money he needs to purchase a secondhand bugle before 6p.m.

The Strip

August 1951 •English

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.

The Apartment Above

February 1937 •Polish

Two apartment house dwellers, although unrelated, share the same name. One is an older man with an appreciation for and love of classical music, while the other is a younger man addicted to swing music. The niece of the older man arrives for a visit and gets into the wrong apartment. Complications arise.

Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho

August 1934 •English

This jazz musical short has a comedy plot about marital infidelity. Bandleader Cab Calloway plays a ladies man who dates the wife (Fredi Washington) of a train porter who is frequently absent from home. Calloway and his Orchestra perform "Zaz-zuh-zaz" and "The Lady with the Fan" at the Cotton Club in Harlem.

Whiplash

January 2013 •English

A ferocious, bullying music teacher teaches a dedicated student.

Jam Session

January 1942 •English

Duke Ellington and Orchestra perform 'C Jam Blues'.

Eccentrics, the Sunny Side of the Street

January 2016 •Polish

The Sound of Freedom

March 2010 •Czech

Based on true events. USSR, 1950s. As the reach of the oppressive communist regime escalates,

Satie's "Parade"

November 2016 •Japanese

A Parade for three managers and four performers. Sketchy drawings in a neatly arranged palette, involving quotes from the French composer Erik Satie, set to the music of Parade performed by the Dutch Willem Breuker Kollektief.

Whiplash

October 2014 •English

Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity.

Chasing Trane

April 2017 •English

An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose original, avant-garde work has impacted and influenced people all over the world. A story about music's ability to entertain, inspire and transform.