The Music Documentary on Martin Luther King Day
The influence of American
culture on silent film music was wide reaching; conversely, so was the
influence of silent film music on American culture. Audiences were exposed to
existing classical music, some for the first time, as well as popular and newly
composed works. New instruments were developed, an accepted musical practice
was conceived that is still evident in today’s film music, the US Copyright
laws were refined, and an entirely new genre of American music was born. These
innovations made the music documentary possible.
There are as many
different types of music documentaries as there are styles of music, but one of
the first instances of music actually being combined with “film” in the United
States took place in 1894. New York sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks and
Joe Stern hired electrician George H. Thomas and various performers to promote
sales of their song “The Little Lost Child.” Thomas photographed people acting
out the song; the photographic images were then printed on glass slides and
painted in color by hand. Musicians played and sang the song live in the
theater while the slides were projected on a screen by means of a magic
lantern. This would become a popular form of entertainment known as the “illustrated
song,” the first step toward music video. Thanks to illustrated song
performances, “The Little Lost Child” became a nationwide hit, spawning a huge
industry. At one time, as many as 10,000 small theaters across the United
States featured illustrated songs. For music publishers, it was a gold mine.
Marks, a former button salesman, and Stern, a one-time necktie hawker, became
Tin Pan Alley titans.
Some of the earliest
American music flicks, so-called “promotional shorts,” featured the jazz stars
of that time. Among the jazz world’s most flamboyant luminaries was Cab
Calloway. The Hi-De-Ho Man’s signature tune “Minnie the Moocher” served as the
soundtrack to Max Fleischer’s 1932 Betty Boop cartoon episode of the same name.
Calloway also recorded “St. James Infirmary Blues” and “The Old Man of the
Mountain,” which were likewise featured in Betty Boop animated shorts.
Through rotoscoping, an
animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement
frame-by-frame, Calloway not only lent his singing voice to these cartoons, but
his dance steps as well. He appeared in a series of Paramount “shorties” in the
1930s, where he can be seen performing a gliding backstep dance move – a
precursor to Michael Jackson’s “moonwalk.” The orchestras of Calloway and Duke
Ellington appeared on film more than any other group of the era.
According to Richard
Brody, Shirley Clarke’s 1985 documentary, Ornette:
Made in America reveals much about the seminal jazz innovator. In this
amazing music documentary Clarke joins an impressionistic portrait of the
musician with an informative overview of his life, work, and ideas. The
documentary also poses painful questions about a mid-career artist whose
restless curiosity is yoked to the glory and burden of a public persona—questions
that apply as well to Clarke and her methods.
