All that jazz - online, on video

Bill Knight column for Thursday, Friday or Saturday, Nov. 16, 17 or 18

Musician W.C. Handy, a founding father of modern blues and jazz, was born 144 years ago this week, so it’s a great time to reflect on jazz in the movies.

“La La Land” won five Oscars this year, but for decades, the film industry was uneven in its treatment of jazz. Actor/filmmaker Clint Eastwood said if Hollywood’s barely given jazz its due, it’s because audiences ignore our culture.

“Americans don’t have any original art except for Western movies and jazz,” Eastwood said in 1988. “Hollywood has largely avoided treating the music and the players seriously because we’re trendy here. We think of ‘culture’ in European terms – European music, European art. But when it comes to jazz – an innovation from the guts of American cities revered around the world – we don’t spend enough time on it.”

However, there’s something, like jazz comedies – Laurel and Hardy’s “Jitterbugs,” Jack Benny in “The Horn Blows at Midnight,” Carole Lombard in “Swing High Swing Low,” and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in “Some Like It Hot.” Biographies are relatively plentiful: “The Fabulous Dorseys,” “Rhapsody in Blue” (George Gershwin), “Night and Day” (Cole Porter), “ ‘Til the Clouds Roll By” (Jerome Kern), and “The Helen Morgan Story” (with Ann Blyth), plus “The Eddie Duchin Story” (with Tyrone Power), “The Gene Krupa Story” (with Sal Mineo), “De-Lovely” (with Kevin Kline as Cole Porter), “For Love or Country” (with Andy Garcia as Arturo Sandoval), and “Born to be Blue” (with Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker).

Movies also sometimes deal with jazz’s distinctive styles, like musicals “Stormy Weather” and “Cabin in the Sky,” and besides three versions of “The Jazz Singer,” there’s escapism in “42nd Street” and “New Orleans,” an air of creativity in “Swing Kids,” and tension in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man” (Henry Fonda as a wrongly accused musician), and “The Legend of 1900” (starring Tim Roth, with Clarence Williams III as Jelly Roll Morton).

Jazz movies have been star vehicles, too: “New York, New York” with Robert DeNiro, “A Man Called Adam” with Sammy Davis Jr., “Meet Danny Wilson” with Frank Sinatra, “Something to Sing About” with Jimmy Cagney, and “Syncopation” with Jackie Cooper.

Here’s a Top 10:

“The Benny Goodman Story” (1955). Steve Allen is impressive as the Chicago-born clarinetist who moves from avant-garde player to a bandleader who brings jazz to Carnegie Hall. Donna Reed co-stars as the wife of the “King of Swing.” Real-life musicians include Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton and Harry James.

“Bird” (1988). This biography of alto sax great Charlie “Bird” Parker was directed by Eastwood, a jazz lover who achieved authenticity in the music and setting. The time is vivid: the late 1940s and early ’50s when New York was the world’s jazz center, propelled by Bird’s bebop. Tempted, then controlled, by abuse of alcohol, drugs and sex, Parker (Forest Whitaker) became withdrawn, then lost.

“Bix” (1991). Italian filmmaker Pupi Avati helmed this interesting version of the life of Davenport, Iowa, native Bix Beiderbecke. Cornetist Beiderbecke (Bryant Weeks) soared in the 1920s, and viewers get a riveting picture. Told in flashback, it shows the change from jazz musicians as sidelights to creative artists. Real-life figures portrayed include Hoagy Carmichael, Frankie Trumbauer and Paul Whiteman.

“Five Pennies” (1959). Danny Kaye stars in a sentimental version of the life and career of Red Nichols, accomplished jazzman from the 1920s. Barbara Bel Geddes, Tuesday Weld and Louis Armstrong co-star.

“The Glenn Miller Story” (1954). Jimmy Stewart stars in this bio-pic tracing the rise of the popular bandleader and the Big Band boom. It features June Allyson, Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa.

“I’ll Cry Tomorrow” (1955). Susan Hayward is singer Lillian Roth in a tale showcasing the music and the ravages of alcohol. Jo Van Fleet and Richard Conte co-star.

“Miles Ahead” (2015). Don Cheadle stars as Miles Davis in this affectionate screen biography co-starring Ewan McGregory and featuring Gary Clark Jr., Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock.

“Pete Kelly’s Blues” (1955). Jack Webb stars as a bandleader whose speakeasy-playing group has to deal with a gangster who wants to get into the booking agency business. Janet Leigh co-stars.

“Round Midnight” (1986). Real-life jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon stars in director Bertrand Tavernier’s affectionate tribute to jazz in a screenplay based on musician Bud Powell and fan Francis Paudras. It co-stars Lonette McKee and jazzmen Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

“Young Man with A Horn” (1950). Filmmaker Michael Curtiz directed this gem based on Dorothy Baker’s novelization of the life of Bix Beiderbecke. Here, Bix is named Rick Martin and played by Kirk Douglas. The supporting cast features Doris Day, Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael.