Duke Ellington In Hollywood: Swing Era

Swingin' movie fantasies.

Duke Ellington was more than just the masterful bandleader of a legendary orchestra who at one time or another featured jazz greats such as Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, Paul Gonsalves, Sidney Bechet, Cootie Williams, Harry Edison, Clark Terry, Barney Bigard, Jimmy Blanton, and a host of first-rate sidemen too numerous to mention. Ellington was also a superb and prolific composer who wrote literally thousands of songs (including numbers such as "Flamingo", "Take the A Train", "Caravan", "Mood Indigo", "Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me", "C-Jam Blues", "Perdido" and countless other classics). Besides being a top-notch arranger, the Duke was also a restless, experimental artist by nature and a musician who never stopped recording from 1926 on. It is safe to say that the incomparable Duke Ellington (1899-1974) stands in a class of his own and will be remembered as one of the men who defined the shape of jazz and American music throughout most of the Twentieth Century.

This video compiles different short and medium-length films starring the great Duke Ellington and his orchestra: Black and Tan (1929), Symphony in Black (1935 - featuring the famous sequence with Billy Holiday), plus assorted different musical sequences from other motion pictures, including the three scenes starring Mae West in the 1934 movie Belle of the Nineties.

Black & Tan
1. Black and Tan Fantasy/ The Duke Step Out
2. Black Beauty
3. Cotton Club Stomp
4. Flaming Youth
5. Same Train
6. Black and Tan Fantasy

Check and Double Check
7. Three Little Words / Old Man Blues

Symphony in Black
8. The Laborers
9. A Triangle: Dance, Jealousy, Blues
10. A Hymn of Sorrow
11. Harlem Rhythm

Paramount Pictorial No. 889
12. Daybreak Express
13. Oh Babe! Maybe Someday

Hit Parade of 1937
14. I've Got to Be a Rug Cutter
15. Jungle Interlude

An Rko Jamboree No. 7
16. Mood Indigo / Sophisticated Lady
17. It Don't Mean a Thing
18. Don't Get Around Much Anymore

Bundle of Blues
19. Rockin' in Rhythm / Stormy Weather

Belle of the Nineties
20. When a Saint Louis Woman Goes Down to New Orleans
21. My Old Flame
22. Memphis Blues