Black and Tan: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A musical film with the title Black and Tan. It consists of a single reel of black-and-white 16mm acetate film with an optical sound track.

The film opens with an RKO title card that reads in part, “Black and Tan with Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra by arrangement with Irving Mills…Recorded by RCA Photophone System.” A trumpet and piano are heard playing the tune “Black and Tan” over the credits.

The first scene introduces Duke Ellington sitting at a piano with his back to the camera and a man holding a trumpet sitting next to him in a chair. They are discussing the tune heard over the credit sequence and writing out the arrangements for the song. While they are playing, there is an exterior shot of two men approaching and entering a building on a city street. Inside, the men look for an apartment, attempting to read the numbers on the door. They are there to repossess the piano for nonpayment. Throughout the scene they speak using malapropisms to communicate with the larger man leaving the smaller man to singlehandedly move the heavy piano.

As this happens, Duke’s girlfriend, Fredi, (played by Fredi Washington) enters the apartment announcing that she has a new job dancing at a club, and that Duke and his band will accompany her act on the piano. She tries to stop the men from taking the instrument by offering money, but they refuse. However, they relent to let it stay a few more days when she offers a bottle of gin. After the men leave, Duke tells Fredi they cannot take the job because of the strain the dancing would cause to her heart condition. She tells him not to worry about her and asks the musicians to play the new music they have been writing. There is a dissolve to Duke’s hands playing rapidly on piano keys along with jazzy music. The camera dollies out to show a line of five men in tails tap dancing reflected in the shiny floor of the club. The long shot reveals Duke Ellington on an art-deco style stage, sitting at the piano with his orchestra behind him. The dancers walk off to an applause and a curtain closes briefly. The dancers then return to the stage, moving in unison, so closely that they resemble one person. The shots cut back and forth between their reflection on the floor and the long shot.

Leaning against a wall backstage, Fredi is seen wiping her brow. The MC comes out and welcomes back Fredi, who has been away from the club after and illness. Though weak, she enters the stage and performs. The camera shoots up through a glass floor from below; as she spins, the panels of her dress create a big circle. While twirling, she holds her heart, staggers, and collapses onstage. She is subsequently carried offstage while the MC tries to keep the show going but Duke, concerned, walks off stage.

In the last scene, a chorus and instruments casting large shadows on the walls sing a spiritual as Fredi lies in a bed dying. She implores Duke to play the “Black and Tan Fantasy.” As Duke, the musicians and the chorus reach the end of the song, Fredi dies, her vision of Duke becoming blurry and dark.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1929
• Directed by: Dudley Murphy, American, 1897 - 1968
• Written by: Dudley Murphy, American, 1897 - 1968
• Subject of: Duke Ellington, American, 1899 - 1974
• Subject of: Fredi Washington, American, 1903 - 1994
• Subject of: Duke Ellington Orchestra, American
• Subject of: Cotton Club, American, 1923 - 1940
• Subject of: Alec Lovejoy, American, 1893 - 1946
• Subject of: Edgar Connor, American, 1893 - 1934
• Type: sound films
• Type: black-and-white films (visual works)
• Type: short subjects
• Type: 16mm (photographic film size)
• Medium: acetate film
• Dimensions: Duration: 20 min.
• Dimensions: Physical extent (film): 700 ft
• Place used: Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North and Central America
• Place filmed: Astoria, New York City, Queens County, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Place depicted: Harlem, New York City, New York County, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Composers (Musicians)
• Topic: Conductors (Musicians)
• Topic: Dance
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Instrumentalists (Musicians)
• Topic: Jazz (Music)
• Topic: Musical films
• Object number: 2017.55.3.1ab
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Transferred from the DC Public Library
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.