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Jazz = gritty reality?

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Here is a thread full of kitchen sinks, angry young men, poor cows, hard-boiled East End geezer, Cold War skulduggery, long-distance runners and kestrels. Yes, we are going back to the novels and movies of the 1950s and 60s. I am particularly interested in the soundtracks.

What it’s all about?
Alfie.

I’ve seen the 1966 film starring Michael Caine as a compulsive womaniser but I didn’t notice it has an excellent jazz soundtrack by Sonny Rollins.

This thread was inspired by a recent comment from @leffe-gin. Here is what he wrote.

There was quite a strong connection between kitchen sink drama and jazz music. A Taste of Honey (the play) originally had a live jazz band on stage, playing an improvised soundtrack I believe.
Anyway, there were many similar things in theatre- my Dad was one of the jazz players on stage in a Birmingham play called Catback. I have the script – I can see why nobody has heard of it since! But this ethos moved from theatre to film. Jazz = gritty reality.

How big a role did jazz play in the soundtracks of this era?

Louis Malle’s Lift to he Scaffold from 1958 with its Miles Davis soundtrack springs immediately to mind.

That rascal @Fitterstoke does not believe in this theory and posted an exquisite track by Cleo Laine, Thieving Boy , from Joseph Losey’s The CrIminal to disprove it.

How do you see the 60s?

Gritty, witty, shitty or pretty?

0

Comments

  2. Well! I can’t agree with your characterisation of my view, @Kaisfatdad!
    “Jazz = gritty reality” works just as well as a theory, even if the jazz in question is the exquisite Cleo…I don’t think the jazz necessarily has to be gritty in order to provide commentary on the gritty action.

  3. I mean, the theme from Coronation Street is just about what some call jazz. It’s certainly a kitchen sink drama & has its roots in the ‘Taste of Honey’ scene.

      • Billy Connolly once said that his definition of an intellectual was someone who could listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.

        • As I recall there was a Mad cartoon strip two kids are watching TV the presenter says they are going to play a piece of music and they must concentrate hard to listen to it and not let their mind wander and think of a television programme.

          They concentrate hard as the William Tell overture plays their father comes in wearing a vest and waving a bottle of beer shouting “Hi Ho Silver”.

          Can’t find the original strip alas.

  4. 1958. louis Malle was so far ahead of his time

    Here is Miles improvising in the studio

    Rather fittingly, the best jazz film I’ve ever seen was by a French director, Bernard Tavernier. Herbie Hancock won an Oscar for the soundtrack

  5. Though rather tangential to the thread, apart from it’s mostly in black and white, it’s a documentary about the 60s, it’s very gritty and real (and grim), it’s clearly inspired by the ‘look and feel’ of some of these films, and it has a brilliant, mostly jazz soundtrack (though I know nothing about jazz I feel I can state this confidently), I feel the need to shoehorn this recommendation in. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat. It’s a bit of a masterpiece.

    And here’s the soundtrack:

    • What an excellent film for this thread @Guiri. i knew nothing about it, so i had to do some research.

      https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/nov/16/soundtrack-to-a-coup-detat-review-johan-grimonprez-drc-congo-belgium-jazz-cold-war-cia?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

      Wendy Ide was very keen..

      a breathtaking, ideas-packed journey that weaves together American jazz and the geopolitical machinations of the 1950s and 60s. It’s almost reductive to describe this extraordinary essay film as a music documentary – it’s about so much: the cold war; the bloody fingerprints of colonialism in Africa; the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo; Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe. But linking it all is an eye-opening exploration of the politics of jazz, and the music itself, freewheeling and skittish and pulsing through every frame.

      • I think this very much fits the bill, it’s the soundtrack to a gritty time. Jazz was a political stance quite often; I think it might still be.

        Very much at a tangent – Sketches of Spain by Miles has struck me as a piece of graffiti, like he’s spraying his tag all over some music that wasn’t supposed to be for ‘his kind’. This is a political statement, not just a nice album to listen to.

          • Phew not just me. If Tig gives the thumbs down I feel much better. I could never see what the fuss was about. Yet they think “Some day my prince will come” is a lesser album and I absolutely love it

  6. The ‘Alfie’ soundtrack on Impulse was not the music actually used in the 1966 film. The Impulse album features Rollins with the cream of US musicians at the time (Kenny Burrell, JJ Johnson, Phil Woods etc) while the actual movie features Rollins with British musicians, including Stan Tracey.

    • Thanks @jazzjet. that story about how Sonny re-recorded the album is most odd.

      And then there’ whole business of the Bacharach song.

      On its original release, the movie had an all instrumental soundtrack, by Sonny Rollins.
      The Oscar nominated song, by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, was added for the American release, and to a U.K. re-release. For the U.K. re-release, the song was sung by Cilla Black over the end credits, which went to number nine on the British charts. For the U.S. release, the song was originally to be sung by Dionne Warwick over the end credits, but was replaced at the last minute by the version sung by Cher. Ironically, Warwick’s version outperformed Cher’s on the Billboard charts. Burt Bacharach produced Cilla’s version, although George Martin insisted his be the only name to be credited. All versions around to day have the altered exit music.

      • @Kaisfatdad. There was only about 11 minutes of instrumental music in the original release. I know that because, some time ago, I went to the trouble of extracting the music from the DVD (I know). This excluded the theme song and some trad jazz featuring Queenie Watts (quite a character in her own right). The band included Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes as well as Stan Tracey who improvised the piece ‘Little Malcolm Loves His Dad’, which was wrongly credited to Sonny Rollins.

    • I didn’t quite know that- although it is quite common for soundtrack albums to be completely redone. Vangelis did that for all of his. A movie soundtrack is usually just a set of short ‘cues’ that aren’t intended to extend beyond the scene they accompanied.

  8. Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine were also key to another seminal British 60s film, the magnificent Saturday Night and Sunday morning, adapted from Alan Sillitoe’s equally fine novel.

  9. But away from British social realism, for jazz soundtracks of 1950s and 1960s movies, it’s hard to beat Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s score for Anatomy of a Murder…

  11. Years before i visited Sweden, I saw Sven Klang’s Combo at the NfT at Waterloo.

    Released in 1976, it is set in the 1950s and tells the story of a small-town, dance band who get a dynamic, new sax player who is very keen to play more jazz.

    Warmly recommended.

    Ronny Scott opened his club in 1959 and Soho was swinging to the sound of jazz.

    But , as Jim Dixon, would tell you, in small provincial towns, madrigals were causing far more excitement.

    i just have to mention Kingsley Amis’s hilarious Lucky Jim.

      • I am delighted that you also enjoyed Sven Klang’s Combo @jazzjet.

        Recently I was looking round a flea market and to my delight I found the soundtrack album going for a mere 40 kronor

        View post on imgur.com

        View post on imgur.com

        I was in my teens when i saw it and didn’t understand a word of Swedish. I really should watch it again as now Í would understand most of the dialogue and have a far better understanding of Swedish small town life.

        Eva Remaeus who played the singer in the band went on to become a national treasure when she appeared in the children’s programme Five ants are more than four elephants. the best Swedish kids show ever,

        @locust may disagree with me on that.

        Whatever. It is still a family favourite with us.

        Eva Remaeus died of a brain tumour only 42 years old. in 1993 So terribly sad,

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Remaeus

  16. Not the jazziest, but can’t resist this – A Bout de Soufle, soundtrack by Martial Solal.

    Can’t tell you how many brownie points I got from my daughter when I told her that I sold the Herald Tribune in Paris for a couple of weeks in 1965. Under the Eiffel Tower, suitably enough. She’s never forgiven me for losing the t-shirt somewhere along the line though.

  17. One of my favourite films of recent years is Polish road movie, Ida by Paweł Pawlikowski from 2013 which quite rightly won an Oscar for best foreign language film.

    It is set in 1962 and describes a young novice’s journey of discovery before she takes holy orders. Jazz lays a major role in the story when Ida and her aunt stay at a hotel where a jazz band is playing.

    Jazz was an important ingredient in several of the great Polish films of the 1960s, such as Polanski’s debut Knife in the Water.

    Krzysztof Komeda composed the soundtrack of that and several other classics of the period.

    The YT notes for that clip are excelent.

    Polish pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda, who died tragically young aged thirty-eight in 1969, has gained something of a cult reputation for his 1960s recordings and here is a major reason why. This beautifully illustrated release complete with resplendent photo images of the debut film by Roman Polanski from 1962 is everything that a film soundtrack should be: invigorating, evocative and imaginative. Surrounded by a terrific band that featured a young trumpeter Tomasz Stanko who a decade later would become a stalwart of the ECM label, the all original compositions are ideally showcased by the haunting number ‘Roman Two’ which is quite experimental in sound for 1961 and has both a lovely build of tension on piano and a modal feel.

    This morning i read this excellent article on jazz in Polish cinema.

    https://culture.pl/en/article/sounds-of-freedom-jazz-music-in-polish-cinema

    It points out that Ida is a deliberate hommage to the Polish classics of the 60s.

    A glance at the scenes of Ida, shot in basements, makes it clear that these are the same brick arches and rounded, barrel-vaulted ceilings that frame the compositions of Morgenstern’s Goodbye, See You Tomorrow to which Pawlikowski was paying tribute with his film. In his story about communist Poland of the 1960s, Pawlikowski used an array of associations introduced by the classics. It is no coincidence that the two guides of the main protagonist in Ida were a communist aunt and a young jazz musician. The former is a symbol of hierarchy and power, and the latter the embodiment of freedom and sexuality.

    What a shame i don’t know the Polish word for gritty. If I did, I’m sure I could find some really interesting films.

  18. I believe that Ted Goia is rather highly regarded by @DuCo01 and other AW jazzers.

    I can see why. This article about Italian soundtrack composers is superb.

    https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-jazzy-and-funky-sounds-of-italian

    He makes me keen to get listening…..Here is his introduction.

    My favorite period for Italian film music started sometime in the mid-1950s and continued into the late 1970s—and by the end of that era, almost anything could show up in an Italian film. And that was true of the music too, conveying a sense of freedom that provided much of its enduring appeal. There were few limits, except for the budget—but even this may have been a blessing in disguise, as these composers learned how to extract the widest range of sounds from the smallest number of instruments.

    It was as if two conflicting worldviews collided in these soundtracks. On the one hand, these composers were extremely aware of trends in Hollywood scores and American popular music, and could draw on everything from West Coast jazz to inner-city funk in their own work. On the other hand, they had grown up surrounded by the rich tradition of Italian classical and operatic music, which had its own tools for enhancing drama and romance. The intersection of these powerful soundscapes created something new and fresh, unlike anything happening anywhere else in the world of pop culture.

  20. The 1962 British movie, ‘All Night Long’ is a must for fans of 60s jazz soundtracks. It stars Patrick McGoohan, Keith Michell and Richard Attenborough and is an updated version of Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ set largely in Shad Thames, only a few hundred yards from where I grew up. It features British musicians John Dankworth and Tubby Hayes as well as Americans Dave Brubeck and Charlie Mingus who were touring in the UK at the time and were invited to participate. Here’s a link to the full movie:

  21. There was a link between Japanese Jazz and 1960s student radicalism—it seems that students retained an affinity for post-bop jazz along with rock music. The Yamashita Yosuke Trio even recorded a live album( “Dancing Kojiki”) from the student occupation of Waseda University in Tokyo, 1969. In 1972, they soundtracked the (pretty terrible) left-wing, pornographic film ‘Ecstasy of the Angels” by Wakamitsu Koji. (Japanese cinema in the 1970s was in a strange place.) This clip is the music and not the film.

    Also, Takemitsu Toru was not a jazz musician as such, but his soundtrack for Shinoda Masahiro’s yakuza film Pale Flower (1964) is very cool:

  22. Back to Polish jazz for a moment. it’s still very alive and well.

    @DuCo01 is something of an expert and he’s taken me to the Fasching Jazzclub to see pianist
    Leszek Możdżer with Swedish bassist Lars Danielsson

    I believe he has written some film music but I can’t find the names of the films

    Here’s a vintage Polish box set that might be worth investigating….

    https://polishmusic.usc.edu/2014/12/01/jazz-in-polish-cinema/

    Here’s a taste..

  23. it’s not just adult films which can have a fine jazz soundtrack. I suddenly remembered UN CHAT A PARIS, a quite wonderful French kids film.

    What a gorgeous tune.

    And then there’s the Hot Jazz of Les Triplettes de Belleville.

  24. Jazz was very prominent in TV and film music in the 50s/60s in Britain. Probably the longest tail use was the theme to ‘Parkinson’, which remained when the show was revived 1998-2004, with (from memory) the presence of the house big band – which was a common thing in 60s/70s light entertainment shows, but extinct by the 90s.

    Pete Townshend’s dad Cliff played in the 70s ‘Parkinson’ band – here’s Pete jamming the theme with them in 1981 (end of the original run) – from 18:40 onwards.

  25. There was a good jazz film soundtracks compilation from Uncut which I still have somewhere but I can’t for the life of me remember the name. It’s good though!

  26. Apologies if I’ve missed a referral to this excellent label up-thread, but in case not, here it is:
    https://moochinaboutltd.bandcamp.com/

    And in particular, this:
    https://moochinaboutltd.bandcamp.com/album/jazz-on-film-the-new-wave
    A brilliant 6 CD box set, nicely packaged with a lovely booklet for 15 quid!

    Also, this is a good ‘un:
    https://moochinaboutltd.bandcamp.com/album/jazz-on-film-tv-crime-jazz
    Unfortunately the CD box is sold out.

    • Thank you so much @peanuts-molloy.

      So many new names.Exploring all the composers and artists on those compilations will
      keep me busy for yonks.

      Here is a playlist of all the tracks on

      JAZZ ON FILM THE NEW WAVE Volume 1

      https://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various-artists/jazz-on-film-the-new-wave/

      Here are the composers and films that are mentioned with a few samples to whet your appetite.

      PAUL MISRAKI – LES COUSINS, AND GOD CREATED WOMAN

      SACHA DISTEL – QUAND J’Y PENSE

      MARTIAL SOLAL – A BOUT DE SOUFFLE

      GEOGE DELERUE AND BOBBY LE POINTE – SHOOT THE PIANIST – Truffaut

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raYNrwkjP8o

      EDDIE BARCLAY AND JO BOYER – BOB LA FLAMBEUR – Melville

      MILES DAVIS – ASCENSEUR POUR L’ECHAFAUD

      BOBBY WILEN – UN TEMOIN DANS LE VILLE

      ART BLAKEY’S JAZZ MESSENGERS – DES FEMMES DISPARAISSENT, LES LIASONS DANGEROUX

      LES AYMARA AND GEORGES ARVANITAS QUINTET – LA BRIDE SUR LE COU

      LUIZ BONFA AND ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM – ORFEU NEGRO- BLACK ORPHEUS

      MODERN JAZZ QUARTET – SAIT ON JAMAIS – NO SUN IN VENICE

      KRZYSZTOF KOMEDA – KNIFE IN THE WATER

    • My pleasure, @Mousey. A big thankyou to @leffe-gin who kicked the whole thing off

      I am really enjoying myself revisiting old favourites and learning about films i’ve never heard of.

      Of course, not I must ask you and the other AW contributors in Australia and New Zealand.

      Are there any films from your part of the world with a jazzy soundtrack?

      This morning I discovered this excellent list of jazz soundtrack albums.

      https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/best-jazz-soundtracks/

      Charles Waring’s article about the history of jazz in the movies is well worth a read.

      This paragraph coves several films we’ve mentioned.

      The 50s was also a decade when movie composers began to use the language of bebop-influenced jazz to create darker, more intense and highly textural musical backdrops in crime and thriller movies – a genre that inspired some of the best jazz soundtracks of the era. Elmer Bernstein was a master of the 50s film noir soundtrack, and his exceptional work graced two of that decade’s most impactful jazz-influenced movies, The Man With The Golden Arm and Sweet Smell Of Success. These were movies that used jazz in a highly stylized way to create tension and atmosphere, but they also helped to establish an association between jazz and criminal activity, which was also reinforced in Martial Solal’s vibrant score to French director Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1959 classic new-wave film, À Bout De Souffle, about a pathological thief who commits a murder. Homicide was also on the menu in another noted jazz-infused French movie, Louis Malle’s Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud, with Miles Davis on his first soundtrack duty.

      What a gritty decade the 1950s was.

  28. This is another excellent British 60s film with a jazz soundtrack, composed by Kenny Graham. The soundtrack was reissued by Jonny Trunk a few years ago. The film didn’t flinch from showing the sleazy side of 60s Soho and starred the peerless Anthony Newley and Julia Foster.

    • I take my hat off to you @jazzjet.

      Once again you’ve come up with a wonderful, not so famous 60s gem which i am really looking forward to watching..

      What a cast. Warren Mitchell, Derek Nimmo, Wilfred Brambell, Miriam Karlin

      Newley was an interesting chap. I just stumbled across this wacky tv series that I’d never heard of.

      https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052205/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_6_nm_2_in_0_q_the%2520small%2520world%2520of%2520sammy%2520le

      ALL rather wonderful.

      • My pleasure @Kaisfatdad. If I ever went on Mastermind my specialist subject would be British jazz of the 50s and 60s. Full of great stories and characters – and, of course, music.
        I remember seeing Gurney Slade first time round. The theme was composed by Max Harris and the single got quite high in the UK charts in the early 60s.

        • Now there is a catchy tune.

          I get the feeling that a lot of 60s TV these had a rather jazzy feel.

          Or it my imagination?

          I’m sure you’d do very well on Mastermind @jazzjet. Thanks for sharing all your magnificent, arcane knowledge with us.

          What a shame the Afterword is not a university. What a team we could put together for University Challenge,

          • It’s probably true that a lot of TV themes and soundtracks from the 50s and early 60s were jazzy in feel, maybe because the overwhelming majority of session musicians at the time came from a jazz or dance band background. This started to change when the younger generation of rock musicians (eg Jimmy Page, Rick Wakeman etc) started to muscle in on the session scene from the mid 60s onwards.

  29. There’s only film from Latin America that has been mentioned so far, the wonderful BLACK ORPHEUS which relocated the Orpheus myth to the favelas of Rio.

    I was surprised to discover it was directed by a Frenchman, Marcel Camus.

    This review is very interesting. Here is a quote….

    https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/black-orpheus-marcel-camus-bossa-nova-music

    To the French, Black Orpheus is considered Brazilian because it employs a mostly native cast and crew. But to the Brazil people, it’s European, as it was produced by French and Italian studios, and most of the royalties and profits went out of the country. Camus was neither part of the social realist movement of Brazilian Cinema Novo nor the French New Wave. He was a man apart, unaffiliated with any specific scene or political group. That’s not to say he turned a blind eye to domestic social issues – he understood perfectly well what life really looked like in the slums of Rio, he just chose to tell a different story.

    What a revelation this film must have been in the glum, ration-book, black and white world of post-war Britain. An explosion of colour, melody and sensuality.

    It made little impression in Pinne in 1959. my idols, pinky and perky, the singing piglets, did not jump on the Bossa Nova bandwagon.

  31. Not exactly a moody jazz themed movie but this piece – ‘Voodoo’ from the horror pic ‘Dr Terror’s House of Horrors’ performed by Tubby Hayes’ quintet with Roy Castle from 1965 – is very entertaining.

    • Another gem from the 60s. You really are spoiling us, @jazzjet.

      From 1965 when Hammer ruled the roost for horror movies. I was 12 and not yet able to bluff my way into X films, Even the notorious South Harrow Odeon would turn me away.

      Of course, now you have got me thinking about jazz musicians with cameos in movies. I really got lucky when i found this discussion..All manner of surprises.

      https://www.organissimo.org/forum/topic/84502-jazz-musicians-that-have-cameos-in-films/

      Cameos, expected and unexpected. There is a whole new thread just waiting to be started there.

      For example how many of you have seen GET YOURSELF A COLLEGE GIRL?

      Worth seeing for this Getz Gilberto cameo, Those college girls are way past their teens

  32. Further up the thread @mikethep mentioned to @Pessoa a novella The Bass Saxophone by Josef Škvorecký

    Here is a little more info.

    https://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/the-bass-saxophone-by-josef-skvorecky/

    and a quote…
    jazz was a sharp thorn in the sides of the power-hungry men, from Hitler to Brezhnev, who successfully ruled in my native land.

    The book describes the Nazi repression of jazz music.

    In Germany this led to an undergrund protest movement the SWINGJUGEND. A rebellious counter-culture which is a fascinating chapter in German history.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swingjugend

    The Swing Youth used their love of swing and jazz music to create their sub-culture with one former Swing Kid Frederich Ritzel saying in a 1985 interview: “Everything for us was a world of great longing, Western life, democracy – everything was connected – and connected through jazz”.

    There was a German TV movie which mentions them

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0484460/

    Oddly enough, there was also an American feature film, SWING KIDS, starring a young Christian Bale.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108265/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_SWING%2520KIDS

  33. i am surprised how few jazzy German films have been mentioned.

    To redress the balance, here is a new movie which premiered at the BERLIN film festival earlier in the year, Köln 75.

    All the Jarrettheads among you will immediately realise it’s a film about teenage impresario Vera Brandes.

  34. Just bought the New Wave Jazz on Film album – it’s great.

    While poking around I found an Italian equivalent – all featuring the work of Piero Umiliani, a new name to me, I have to confess. Chet Baker got involved during his Italian sojourn. Here’s something from the soundtrack of Audace Colpo Dei Soliti Ignoti, which translates as Fiasco in Milan.

    • He gets mentioned in GioIa’ s excellent article on Italian soundtracks posted above.

      Here is what he wrote.

      Piero Umiliani (1926-2001)

      Like Piccioni, Umiliani trained for a career in law, but his skill as a jazz pianist opened up more exciting opportunities. By some accounts, he was the first Italian musician to make a bebop record. His score for the 1956 film I Soliti Ignoti (aka Big Deal on Madonna Street) was one of the first jazz Italian film scores. Umiliani had a deep appreciation for West Coast jazz, both as a composer and performer—as demonstrated in his collaborations with Chet Baker.

  35. Arne Sucksdorff’s film Pojken i trädet from 1961 had a soundtrack written by Quincy Jones, I believe it was his first shot at doing a film soundtrack, IIRC.
    The film is about teenage boys getting into trouble, I’ve seen it but so long ago that I can’t remember much about it. A very young Tomas Bolme played the main character – later famous for many roles on stage, TV and film, but perhaps even more for narrating the Tintin adventures…

    • You got me curious there, @Locust.

      The director was Arne Sucksdorf who was rather well-known as a documentary film-maker but had never made a feature film.

      The Letterboxd page is rather informative.

      https://letterboxd.com/film/the-boy-in-the-tree/

      Göte lille, det finns ingen frihet någonstans på denna sköna jord.

      Similarly like in The Great Adventure nature takes a big spot in The Boy in The Tree both in imagery and sound. There are some really nice and long tracking shots by Gunnar Fischer.

      Funnily enough this is the first film Quincy Jones ever scored after a young Stefan Jarl had brought Jones to meet Sucksdorff in his house after a concert.

      I think you will really enjoy this radio excerpt.

      https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/420582

      It was the most expensive Swedish film ever at the time.

      https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055315/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_0_in_0_q_pojken%2520i%2520tr%25C3%25A4det

      • I love the artwork for the LP Quincy’s Home Again.

        Quincy Jones sitting on the steps outside the Stockholm Konserthuset in 1958.

        That’s where Miles Davis and John Coltrane recorded an excellent live album in 1960. It says a lot about the status and selling power of jazz stars that they played in one of the largest and poshest venues in town.

        It’s worth mentioning that several US jazz musicians relocated to Scandinavia in the 60s. Not least Dexter Gordon who settled in Copenhagen

        HERE IS SOME BACKGROUND FROM THE ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.

        https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/articles/dexter-gordon-bebop-to-copenhagen/

        In every way imaginable, life in Copenhagen was easier for Gordon. He had access to a deep pool of talented players to collaborate with, many of them on — or nearly on — his level. Plus, Europeans generally viewed jazz musicians as the artists that they were and felt themselves to be, not as purveyors of youth-corrupting race music, as was the case in some parts of the U.S. While in Copenhagen, Gordon was able to record continually. He was lucky in that regard. Unlike a lot of brilliant bebop players who found themselves no longer in demand, Gordon was captured on tape at the peak of his powers.

        Back in the US in the 60s, black musicians encountered prejudice. In Europe they played to full houses in the grandest concert halls in town.

        Here are the dynamic duo of Davis and Coltrane live in New York in 1959.

        Beautifully filmed.

        Can you imagine the excitement among Swedish jazz fans when Quincy, Miles or Trane hit town?

        I was 7 years old in 1960. Why on earth didn’t my parents fly me out to Stockholm to see these giants of jazz? What on earth were they thinking?

  36. I’m sure it would be incredibly slow and dull to watch today, but growing up the most exciting and thrilling Swedish TV series for kids/young adults was Kullamannen and the theme music set the spooky tone, not jazz but with a slightly jazzy part that suddenly appear in the middle:

    • I feel like I know that music from UK tv, but can’t think where. That whole title sequence scared the living daylights out of me, the music being very effective at setting that weird tone. I just read the synopsis on IMDB, yep, sounds like it would have been rather good.

      • @Kaisfatdad – I know this thread has run its course, but YouTube just recommended this extended soundtrack to Kullamannen to me, and it’s too good to ignore!
        For a kids show, I think it’s very ambitious.

        • Never too late for a few extra comments, @Locust.

          Very ambitious indeed, it made me want to learn more about Charles Redland who wrote the music. He was a jazz musician with a very long career.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Redland

          i looked through his imdb page and noticed that Charles composed the music for the Agaton Sax feature film.

          https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0714946/?ref_=fn_all_nme_1

          I really must try to find out more about him, And about Kullamannen which was obviously a landmark in Swedish kids TV.

          He didn’t just do kids films,

          Blonde in Bondage, a hard-boiled, Swedo-American joint project from 1957 was far racier.

          I watched the opening scene. It looks rather entertaining.

          What do you know about Sweden?

          Well, there’s Garbo, Bergman and Anita Ekberg..

          • @Kaisfatdad, when I hear the name Charles Redland I think of the original Barna i Bullerbyn in b/w, he did the music to that one as well. I know that because the kids in the series would end every episode reading out the credits of everyone involved, so they got stuck in everyone’s memory!
            I used to go to the local church for their “Childrens Hour” to get to watch it – it’s the only reason why we went to church…

            Another Astrid Lindgren series that had ambitious music is of course the original Vi på Saltkråkan, I believe it was Ulf Björlin who wrote the music to that one.

            Kullamannen is probably available at SvT Öppet Arkiv, and also the other big spooky series we all watched, also by Leif Krantz; Kråkguldet! But that intro music is more folk music-inspired.

    • Now that’s a classic that still holds up!
      I have it on DVD, and like many other Swedish kids after watching the series, me and my best friend had a stone that we gave back and forth after successfully completing the challenges we gave each other. Fun times!

  38. Now here’s a Swedish comedy without kitchen sinks or gritty realities, but full of jazz; Det svänger på slottet starring Alice Babs and some nifty musicians, from 1959:

  39. @locust‘s mention of Alice Babs made think of the wonderful Monica Zetterlund who was both a singer and an actress.

    She was brilliant as Ulrika in Jan Troell’s The Emigrants but she didn’t sing any jazz. Sadly, it hadn’t been invented i the 1840s.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQEeMni6x48

    Recently, Edda Magnuson portrayed her in a quite decent biopic,

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2112206/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_moica%2520z

      • Brilliant choice @Hubert-rawlinson. How on earth did me miss that?

        Lester went on to become very successful in the 60s, to put it mildly.

        https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0504513/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

        This film was a kind of dress-rehearsal for A HARD DAY’S NIGHT. The Beatles toured as support act for Helen Shapiro at this time so The Fabs would have known all about this US director who was making waves.

        Helen was a busy lady. In 1962 she also appeared i PLAY IR COOL, directed by Michael Winner.

        Here’s the trailer for it’s tra,dad.

        It’s trad, dad was renamed for the US market as RING-A-DING RYTHMN.

        https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ring_a_ding_rhythm

        Lester certainly managed to cram in a lot of artIsts with the trad scene very well-covered. But he throws in the likes of Chubby Checker and Del Shannon for good measure. In 1962, when there was very little pop music on both the radio and TV, this film must have been very popular with the trad and pop kids.

          • Just looking for the antithesis of gritty reality.

            Looking for the poster I found this link to John Peel.

            “Peel was invited to select a film to be shown at the inaugural Sound City event in Norwich in 1992, and It’s Trad, Dad!, a film he had never seen, was his choice. On his 24 April 1992 show – the day after the screening – he talks about why he requested it. “It was a real treat”, he says. Alan Freeman, Pete Murray and David Jacobs appear in the film as a trio of trendy DJs. In John’s opinion, Freeman’s appearances are one of its high ponts”

            Tried to edit it as the blockquote didn’t work but to no avail

            https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/It%27s_Trad,_Dad!

  41. It’s about time to close this gargantuan thread down. Thanks for all the fascinating comments.

    But we can’t possibly do so without a mention of the MY GIRL’S PUSSY HITMAKER aka Harry Roy.

    From the 1936 British film Everything is Rhythm.

    • I do like that jazzy music for Agaton, @Locust. As far as I can work out, it was written by Charles Redland.

      https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0714946/?ref_=ttfc_fcr_5_1

      While trying to find out who had written the score, I stumbled across this very interesting article in Swedish. Agaton Sax och Byköpings gästabud was the first ever, feature-length, animated film produced in Sweden.

      https://flm.nu/2021/12/sa-blev-agaton-sax-sveriges-forsta-animerade-langfilm/

      I just noticed that the narrator in the original cartoon series was Bert-Åke Varg who I know well from SAGORNAS VÄRLD, another big favourite here in Bagis.

      • @Kaisfatdad – you mean Fablernas värld, of course.
        I remember watching a feature film version of Fablernas värld at the sadly no longer existing cinema Röda Kvarn at Biblioteksgatan, when I was very little – I believe it was my first visit to a cinema.
        Can’t remember anything about the film at all, but I remember walking up the stairs clad in red carpet and thinking it looked like a palace!
        (Edit: the stairs was clad in carpet, not me!)

        I also remember going to see Agaton Sax och Byköpings gästabud in the cinema quite a few years later.

          • That is fascinating, @hubert.rawlinson.

            I was surprised when you mentioned the great Quentin Blake.

            The books must have been successful for him to be involved

            With so much competition from anglophone writers, I wouldn’t have expected it to be have been translated. How very wrong i was. Did you know what a sensation Agaton was in the UJ @Locust?

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaton_Sax

            Altogether, eleven books were published in Sweden, and all but one were also published in English translation.

            As with many foreign language novels translated into English, the style and idiosyncrasies of the translations were quite important to the popularity and success of the English editions. Unusually, Franzén did most of the English translations himself, working with a supplemental translator, Pamela Royds, on stylistic choices,[1][2] which was a significant factor in preserving the humour of the original Swedish versions into the English translations.

            The British series was immensely popular, and as a result, became the “most re-issued detective/mystery series in the history of Nordic children’s literature in British translation for the period 1950–2000.”[

            You can see all the covers QB did for the Agaton series on Quentin’s wonderful homepage.

            https://quentinblake.com/books/agaton-sax-and-the-diamond-thieves

            Here is the trailer for the feature film dubbed into English

            • Yes, I’ve heard about it, @Kaisfatdad, but not exactly how successful they were.
              I think the Ture Sventon books by Åke Holmberg would have deserved that kind of success more IMO, they’re sooo much funnier (only four of them were translated into English, his name changed to Tam Sventon and the semlor turned into hot cross buns…I don’t know why Sventon would need a refrigerator to keep his hot cross buns fresh in the desert, but sure…)

              • Well @Locust, I would guess that it was Franzen’s commitment to getting the translations done properly that resulted in the books getting published in the UK.

                I just found this long and very detailed article about te translation process.

                https://barnboken.net/index.php/clr/article/view/258

                Franzen’s teamwork with editor-second translator, Pamela Royds, was unique for its time. And it certainly paid off.

                He was clearly a very interesting bloke.

                Incidentally, @hubert.rawlinson, the article mentions that Kenneth Williams reading two of the Franzen novels on Jackanory in 1971 and 1977 was a major boost to their popularity.

                I feel a new thread taking shape….

                • @Kaisfatdad – what’s interesting is that Åke Holmberg also worked as a translator of books from the English language, and other languages too.
                  So you’d think he could have translated his own books into English as well…!

                  • You would indeed @Locust.

                    Maybe he had other bigger translation fish to fry?

                    Perhaps we can compare it to Scandinavian bands who were determined to have a hit in the UK?

                    A-HÁ actually moved to the UK to fulfil their pop star dreams-

  43. I wasn’t going to bother but you all seemed to have forgotten this so just to make sure it doesn’t remain overlooked. I collect film soundtracks, not avidly but now and again when I see one that takes my fancy. I’m particularly fond of Bernard Herrmann and Nino Rota. I’ll chuck my hat into the ring for The Jazz on Film box sets too while I’m about it. Well worth picking up if you see any knocking about. I have a few of them myself.
    Hwyl fawr.

      • Great choice @Pencilsqueezer. Always a pleasure when you have a movie to recommend.
        You know your cinematic onions.

        Which Nino Rota soundtrack would suit this thread?

        Hermann was one of the greats.

        The guy who posted it calls himself SOUNDTRACK FRED. I intend to explore his channel a little more.

        Here is his comment on this clip

        When it came to produce “Taxi Driver” (1976), the story about a psychologically unstable veteran of the vietnam war named Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) who tries to co-exist in present society, which seems to disgust him more and more and more, director Martin Scorsese reached out for the legendary Bernard Herrmann to score it, as he already went down in history as the master for psychological refined motion pictures. When Scorsese firstly phoned the composer, he would decline the offer saying: “I don’t know anything about Taxi Drivers, I don’t want to make a movie about them”. But after reading the script, he would eventually do it. The result is something careful listeners never heard before from Herrmann in that form, yet it is something only he could have done. The horror, the loneliness paired with the element of Jazz… it was perfect for the picture and would earn Herrmann rightfully an Academy Award nomination (along with his score for Brian De Palma’s “Obsession”) for best original score (Jerry Goldsmith would eventually take the statue for “The Omen”). After the last day of the recording sessions for “Taxi Driver”, Herrmann would return to his hotel and die peacefully in his sleep on Christmas Eve 1975, having given us one last great score that survived along the movie and is actual as ever. Enjoy!

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