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Chapter 11: Mass Appeal: Taking Note of Jazz in Popular Culture
Hello, Dolly!
Even Armstrong’s popular performance in Hello, Dolly! (1969) portrayed the
stereotypical black simpleton, making the white folks smile. At least in this
case, he co-starred with Carol Channing. Casting Armstrong alongside a white
entertainer was a step up from the old cliché of a black performer hamming
it up for a white audience. The 1960s were a transitional time; in the 1950s,
black musicians weren’t cast as the equals of whites. Hello, Dolly! marked a
step in the right direction.
The title song summed up the pros and cons of Armstrong’s role. While the
song is a pop show number made for entertainment purposes, Armstrong’s
version gives it a jazz flavor. His gruff, friendly vocal style is quite different
than the usual smooth Broadway delivery, and he even manages to scat-sing
a few bars — one of the rare instances when jazz improvisation infiltrates a
show tune. Whether they knew it or not, American audiences were getting a
good shot of jazz with their entertainment.
Chronicling jazz musicians’ lives
Is there a genuine jazz film? One that makes authentic jazz its centerpiece
instead of a decoration? The short answer is yes, from Kirk Douglas’s trumpeter
role in Young Man with a Horn (1950) to Dexter Gordon’s emigrant saxophonist
in Round Midnight (1986) and a fading Chet Baker in the documentary
Let’s Get Lost (1988). The time between the Douglas and Gordon films gives a
window on social progress. It was the time it took to move from a white actor
playing a jazz musician, to a black actor and jazz musician giving a very real
portrayal of jazz music and a life in jazz. After Douglas portrayed an expatriate
jazz musician, Gordon actually was one.
In the following sections, I cover a few feature films and documentaries that
shed light on the lives of jazz musicians.
Hollywood feature films
In the 1950s, Hollywood, always looking for the latest cultural trend, latched
onto jazz. Boosted by pianist Dave Brubeck’s 1954 appearance on the cover
of Time magazine and other coverage of jazz, jazz musicians became the
’50s equivalent of ’60s hippie rock musicians. At the same time, jazz began
to turn up on soundtracks for films such as On the Waterfront, starring Marlon
Brando. The time was right for films (like the following) that took jazz as subject
matter instead of just background color.
� Young Man with A Horn: This film, partially inspired by the tragic life
of trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke (see Chapter 5), features captivating
black-and-white images, good music, and a story that gets to the heart
of a jazz musician’s struggles as a marginalized artist. Kirk Douglas, as
trumpeter Rick Martin, is torn between the music he makes as deeply
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