Black and Tan

Black and Tan (1929)

Duke Ellington plays hot jazz in a fictional story that finds him down on his luck; he tries in vain to dissuade his friend, dancer Fredi Washington, from working with heart trouble even though it means work for his band. Sure enough, she collapses on stage...

Date of release
1929-12-08
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (36)
Runtime
19m
Genres
Music, Drama
Director
Dudley Murphy

Casting

Interesting facts

Black and Tan (1929) is a musical short film written and directed by Dudley Murphy. The plot is about a couple in the performing arts; it is set during the contemporary Harlem Renaissance in New York City. It is the first film to feature Duke Ellington and His Orchestra performing as a jazz band, and was also the film debut of actress Fredi Washington. The film is thought to express the emergence of African-American artists in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance.

Production

Murphy used much of the same set and production crew as for his other 1929 film, St. Louis Blues, featuring Bessie Smith. He and his crew worked on both films concurrently.

Murphy collaborated with Ellington to allow his choice of what music would be played. The orchestra's performance of "Black and Tan Fantasy" in the film is very different from other traditional recordings. It is the only version in which Barney Bigard plays a solo using the clarinet as the melodic instrument during the song. To express the sadness of Fredi's death, Ellington uses music by the Hall Johnson choir.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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