Jazz, Hip Hop Etc.

[james schmidt]

On Thu, 7 Aug 1997, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> At 06:13 PM 8/6/97 -0400, James Schmidt wrote:
> >Buhler also is a work on
> >a paper on a very odd film: A SONG IS BORN -- a 1940s musical with Danny
> >Kaye playing the leader of a group of German scholars who are trying to
> >understand jazz (Benny Goodman -- Adorno's particular demon -- plays one of
> >the Germans). If you squint while watching it, Danny Kaye and the gang
> >start to look like Horkheimer et al. It's a rather wierd film.
> 
> I saw this film!  On TV within the past year or two.  I was absolutely
> fascinated.  Amazed that such a film was actually made in America at that time.
> Of course it was terribly limited by the conventions of the day, but whoever
> wrote this must have been consciously progressive, about taking the music
> seriously and connecting to the real life conditions and the American
> democratic spirit that created the music.  In 1949-50 C.L.R. James wrote
> that Americans strove to integrate all of life, intellect, aesthetics, and
> the rest, and that this was more important than "culture".  This film, in
> trying to promote the forging of a relationship and integration between
> thought, culture, and life, fascinates the hell out of me.

The film can be purchased on video fairly cheaply, should anyone want to
see it. But I wouldn't get TOO carried away about it. I find it a bit of a
stretch to see it as "consciously progressive" --- it is one of the
smarter products of the Hollywood system at its peak. But progressive?

Not to dribble on too much about this, but A SONG IS BORN is a remake of
BALL OF FIRE, a less slick film that was written by Billy Wilder, that
curious Berlin refugee who hit the West Coast and went native in a flash.
In it the professors are working at an encyclopedia of knowledge, when
they run into a mob's doll who talks slang. A SONG IS BORN keeps the same
basic plot but shifts from slang to jazz.  Beyond its oddness, one of the
things that makes A SONG IS BORN useful for trying to get a sense of what
Adorno might have been talking about is the very prominant role it gives
to "jazz" as a way of selling the film. What brought audience into A SONG
IS BORN (and this sets it apart from BALL OF FIRE, I suppose) is the
chance to see (cheaply) all the "great" jazz men of the day. What will
perhaps be most striking to viewers today is how Louis Armstrong blows
everyone else out the door and how tedious most of the big bands were
(there is a Tommy Dorsey number that goes on forever --- boredom sets in
quickly). 

James Schmidt
Boston University