Fantastic film with Jazz greats!!
I fell in love with this movie first viewing it as a kid several years ago. I am surprised TCM does not air it more often. Danny Kaye plays a stuffed shirt music professor who lives with 5 other elder professors.Kaye sets out to document the history of Jazz music visiting clubs and inviting the musicians he has heard to several daily "jam" sessions to record music for a jazz library. He invites a lounge singer he meets,who is involved with a mob boss, and she winds up hiding out from the law at the professors house jamming with these musicians. This film is excellent for one good reason: the musicians invited are some of the best jazz players that ever lived. Clarinet player BennyGoodman, trombonist Tommy Dorsey, Vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, Pianist Mel Powell, and the great Louis Armstrong. There are also two vocal groups, guitarists and percussionists. If you ever had a dream group of musicians you wanted to see play together, you won't be disappointed with this film.One of the remarkable features of this film is not just that so many jazz greats were in it but that they were able to play together in the first place. This movie was made in 1948 when segregation was very much in force. Many of the great white jazz musicians of this time could not play on stage with the black musicians. The clubs white musicians played at did not allow blacks in them or they had to enter through the back door. Most of the time it simply was not allowed. So many great white jazz players who admired Armstrong and Hampton could never play with them because of this. Watch this film though, every jam session you see all the musicians present, black and white, are so engulfed in the music, no one even notices black, white or whatever. Just great music and a lot of fun! The back story is a little silly with Mayo on the lamb from the DA and hiding out at Kaye's residence. Kaye falls for her , playing naive and clueless to her motives. But of course they will wind up together in the end. Mayo looked beautiful in this film,great body! But the real draw is all the musicians. If you're a lover of jazz or even just music, this is a true gem to watch.score 10/10
jailbyrd 14 June 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2080440/35522
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