Film clips from the documentary American Music - From Folk to Jazz and Pop: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A motion picture film with clips from the documentary American Music - From Folk to Jazz and Pop. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, 16mm acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. The film opens with footage from a funeral service and the Eureka Marching Band conducting a street procession. Percy Humphry, the leader of the Eureka Marching Band, describes how the band conducts these funeral parades. In the next scene, a ferry can be seen traveling up a river. The narrator describes how jazz "traveled up the Mississippi to Memphis, to St. Louis where it developed its own forms, and northeastward to Chicago where a young man with a horn by the name of Bix Beiderbecke captured the style of such emigrants such as King Oliver and Louis Armstrong.” Other musicians featured include Jack Teagarden and Benny Goodman who the narrator says transformed jazz into swing. In the last scene, jazz musician Billy Taylor performs with five other bandmates before engaging in a discussion about jazz’s development. He says that, "Jazz is a chronological development and each stage of its development has built upon what went before." He subsequently demonstrates the development of jazz and the different types of jazz beats using his piano.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1966; re-issued 1967
• Directed by: Stephen Fleischman, 1919 - 2011
• Directed by: Jonathan Donald
• Produced by: ABC, American, founded 1948
• Subject of: Percy Humphrey, American, 1905 - 1995
• Subject of: Billy Taylor, American, 1921 - 2010
• Subject of: Benny Goodman, American, 1909 - 1986
• Subject of: Eureka Brass Band, American, founded ca. 1920
• Subject of: Jack Teagarden, American, 1905 - 1964
• Type: sound films
• Type: black-and-white films (visual works)
• Type: 16mm (photographic film size)
• Type: film clips
• Medium: acetate film
• Dimensions: Duration (digital file): 00:12:31
• Dimensions: Physical extent (film): 480 ft
• Place depicted: New Orleans, Orleans County, Louisiana, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Documentary films
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Funeral customs and rites
• Topic: Jazz (Music)
• Topic: Musicians
• Topic: Television
• Object number: 2015.275.25.1a
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Anonymous Gift in memory of Ernest (Ernie) R. Smith, Jazz Historian
• 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. The underlying object's rights statement is: Restrictions likely apply. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.