<I>History of Jazz with Willis Conover</I>
date: label: Date
content: mid 20th century
name: label: Created by
content: Unidentified
label: Subject of
content: Willis Clark Conover Jr., American, 1920 - 1996
label: Subject of
content: Eureka Brass Band, American, founded ca. 1920
label: Subject of
content: Buddy Bolden, American, 1877 - 1931
label: Owned by
content: Ernie Smith, American, ca. 1925 - 2004
notes: label: Description
content: A motion picture film with the title History of Jazz with Willis Conover. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, 16mm acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. It opens with host Willis Conover welcoming the audience to the show and recapping a previous program. Conover then starts the discussion with a conversation about the development of African American music from West African music as drummers play conga drums on screen. He then discusses New Orleans as a music hub for African Americans before the footage cuts to a street scene of the Eureka Brass Band leading a street parade with their audience dancing in tow.
label: Description
content: In the next scene, he talks about the development of ragtime and describes how it is played as a pianist plays a ragtime tune on screen. In the next scene, he describes the development of jazz as a jazz band performs on a stage in front of an audience. After outlining the different genres, the narrator moves on to a discussion of various African American musicians: Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, and Jelly Roll Morten. As he talks, cameo shots of a Victor record playing on a gramophone and photographs of the musicians appear on the screen.
label: Description
content: Conover then moves to a discussion of the 1920s and talks about how developments in transportation and the "new faster living" in the US impacted jazz's proliferation. There is also a scene with the Original Dixieland jazz band performing. After this, Conover says, "In Chicago, young, white musicians paid tribute to the great innovators of New Orleans: Bud Freeman, the McPartland Brothers, Bix Beiderbecke, Muggsy Spanier, Gene Krupa, Eddie Condon, these were the core of the Chicago school.” In the final scenes, images of numerous jazz venues appear on the screen. Conover also names some of the big jazz bands that sprung up after many musicians had fled to big cities like New York. He names individuals such as Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Luis Russell, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. At 00:11:43, Conover reappears on camera and delivers a conclusion to the episode, after which footage of the jazz band performing onstage from an earlier scene is played and the episode comes to an end.
place: label: Place depicted
content: New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, United States, North and Central America
label: Place depicted
content: Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States, North and Central America
label: Place depicted
content: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Film
label: Topic
content: Jazz (Music)
label: Topic
content: Musicians
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Classification
content: Time-based Media - Moving Images
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Anonymous Gift in memory of Ernest (Ernie) R. Smith, Jazz Historian
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2015.275.10.1a
objectType: label: Type
content: sound films
label: Type
content: black-and-white films (visual works)
label: Type
content: 16mm (photographic film size)
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: acetate film
label: Dimensions
content: Duration (digital file): 00:14:39
label: Dimensions
content: Physical extent (film): 500 ft