Two Programs:"Really the Blues" Rare Blues+Jazz +"Vaudeville Deluxe"

Thu, Apr 6

ONE NIGHT ONLY!
TWO PROGRAMS!

"Really The Blues"
Rare Blues, Boogie Woogie+Jazz Films

"Vaudeville Deluxe"
Classic Vaudeville Music and Performance Films

Curator and Collector Dennis Nyback in Person!
Note: This program will be screened in 16mm film with an Q+A to follow.

Note! Separate admission for each show.
SPECIAL: $15.00 for both shows.




"REALLY THE BLUES"
Showtime 8:00PM

Very few of the great blues stars of the twenties and thirties were
ever filmed. This eclectic program will feature the only known film
of the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, from 1929. Other segments
include rare clips from Billie Holiday, Jimmie Rushing, Sonny Terry
and Brownie McGee, jazz piano virtuoso Thelonious Monk, Lester Young,
Count Basie, and a slew of other great musicians playing real blues
and boogies . That is not to be confused with the electric blues that
passes for blues music today. All of the films will be from 1929 to
1964.

Featured films include:

"Jammin' The Blues" (1944, Gjon Mili) There are those who consider
this the greatest music short ever made. It is a great work of art
featuring Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, Sweets Edison, Big Sid
Catlett, Barney Kessel, and other greats. It really cooks!

"The Sound of Jazz" (1957, CBS) This was a TV show broadcast live
just in time to capture some of the greatest acts of all time before
they died. Billie Holiday, Lester Young and Pee Wee Russell all died
with two years of the broadcast. The show makes the point that all
jazz is based on blues. It assembled this amazing group of stars to
prove that point. Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, Red
Allen, Milt Hinton, Jimmie Rushing, Jo Jones and many others play a
dozen great blues numbers including "I Left My Baby" (Jimmie
Rushing), "Dickie's Dream" (The Basie Band) and "Fine and
Mellow" (Billie Holiday).

"Minor Mode Blues" (1962, National Council of Churches) The Max
Roach Quintet with Booker Little played on and appeared in a
religious TV show called The Hipster, the Delinquent and the Square.
This instrumental blues number is from the middle of the show.
Booker Little was a real good trumpet player who joined Max Roach
after Clifford Brown was killed.

"Bald Headed Woman" (1964, TV) Harry Belafonte sings the blues.

"Hootie Blues" (1964, TV) Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry were a
blues team that worked together from 1939 until Sonny died in 1986.
This clip of them playing their composition "Hootie Blues".

"Fare Thee Well" (1943, Soundies Corporation) Not a lot is known
about the gospel group Day, Dusk and Dawn. I'm really glad they
appeared in this film because without it they may have been
completely forgotten. It is a real treat. ""

"Rumboogie" (1942, Soundies Corporation) Another forgotten guy saved
by appearing in a Soundie was the rockin blues man Maurice Rocco.
Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis both copied his act. See it here.

"Cheating Woman Blues" (1943 Soundies Corporation) Cowboy singer Red
River Dave in a saloon sings about the woman who done him wrong and
has brought to thoughts of violence and suicide.
"I'm A Good Good Woman" (1943, Soundies Corporation) Una Mae Carlise
plays boogie woogie piano and sings.

"Ration Blues" (1942, Soundies Corporation) The great Louis Jordan
and his Tympanee Five rock the blues.

"St. Louis Blues" (1929, Dudley Murphy) The only film ever made of
the Empress of the Blues herself, Bessie Smith. One of the greatest
things about film is that it allows us to look at the Twentieth
Century. There is no previous century we can examine in the same way.
If this film did not exist the true greatness of Bessie Smith would
be have certainly been lost.







"VAUDEVILLE DELUXE"
Showtime 10:00PM

Rare short vaudeville films from 1927-1942. Long before television,
radio, and cinema, there was vaudeville: live stage entertainment
variety shows composed of short acts. Many twentieth century stars of
motion pictures and television got their start on the live vaudeville
stage, including Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Milton Berle,
W.C. Fields, George Burns, Fanny Brice, the Three Stooges, and
thousands of others. Vaudeville theaters could be found all across
the nation in big cities and small towns; Buster Keaton (who can be
seen in BROADWAY NIGHTS AND HOLLYWOOD DAYS in this program) was born
in Pequa, Kansas, where his vaudevillian parents were playing the
night he was born.

The Program:

Gus Visser - "The Man With a Duck" (B+W, 1927)
Vitaphone Gambols - Mexican Musicians, Chaz Chase, ABC Trio, Dowling
Girls, Master and Rollins, (B+W, 1936)
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers from the feature film "Hellzapoppin'" (B+W, 1941)
Two College Boys - "Atteberry and Gillium" (B+W, 1928)
J. Harold Murray - "The Ranger Song" (B+W, 1928)
Smash Your Baggage - Entertainers from Smalls Paradise (B+W, 1933)
Ruth Etting and Nat Shildkret's Orchestra - Radio Salutes (B+W, 1931)
W.C. Fields - "The Great McGonigal" from "The Old Fashioned Way" (B
+W, 1934)
Broadway Nights and Hollywood Days - Ed Sullivan 1930's Eddie
Cantor, The Rockettes
That Goes Double - Russ Columbo, Bernice and Emily, Roy Smeck, The
Three Cossacks(B+W, Date Unknown)
Vitaphone Frolics - Jack and Loretta Clemens, Zeb Carver and Cousins,
Stanley Brothers, The Golliwog (B+W, 1937)
The All Colored Vaudeville Show - (Cut down version released in 1946)
Eunice Wilson, Adelaide Hall, Nicholas Bros., Three Whippets (B+W, 1935)
Eddie Peabody and His College Chums - Banjo Virtuoso Eddie backed by
Hal Kemp's orchestra (B+W, 1928)

Notes by Dennis Nyback

Venue:

Oddball Films
275 Capp Street
San Francisco
415-558-8117
www.oddballfilm.com

Off Mission between 17th and 18th, between Mission and South Van Ness.

Additional Info:

415-558-8117
www.oddballfilm.com