Martha Tilton - "A Little Jive Is Good For You"

Martha Tilton sings in this soundie from 1941 called "A Little Jive Is Good For You".  The soundie is set in the waiting room outside a doctors office with the hilarious Slate Brothers as patients. The music is by Ben Pollack and His Orchestra.

What do you think of Martha Tilton singing "A Little Jive Is Good For You" ? Please comment.

Drum Boogie with Gene Krupa from Ball of Fire

Here is a great video with Gene Krupa playing Drum Boogie from the film Ball of Fire.

Ball of Fire was made in 1941 and features Gary Cooper as Prof. Bertram Potts who is researching slang words for an article in an encyclopedia. He meets the singer Sugarpuss O'Shea played by Barbara Stanwyck who teaches him about slang words while she is hiding from mobsters.

What do you think of this video clip with Barbara Stanwyck and Gene Krupa performing Drum Boogie? Tell me.

Fats Waller sings Ain't misbehavin' with Myra Johnson

Ain't misbehavin' is a classic jazz standard by Fats Waller that he wrote in 1929 and Andy Razaf wrote the lyrics. Take a look at this soundie from 1941 where Fats Waller sings Ain't misbehavin' together with Myra Johnson.



Fats Waller had a distinctive voice and a certain performing style with his running commentary all through the song. He was a great entertainer.

Do you know anything more about Myra Johnson?

What do you think of Fats Waller singing Ain't misbehavin'? Tell me.

Glenn Miller - In The Mood

If you ask a person on the street to name a swing song, many would probably say "In the Mood" performed by Glenn Miller. In the Mood is a one of the classic swing songs that everybody should know of. What many people don't know is that the main theme in the song comes from Tar Paper Stomp by Wingy Manone. The Glenn Miller version is credited to Joseph C Garland.

Here is a video clip with Glenn Miller and his orchestra performing "In the Mood" from the film Sun Valley Serenade (1941).

I always thought of Glenn Miller and his band as a quite polished band and I didn't know that they could be so showy, maybe it's because it is a film, I don't know if they did the same thing when they played for dancers in the real world (do you know?).

However, it's great to hear the energy and see the female character played by Sonja Henie get swept into digging the band. As I like to say: "The music made me do it". Resistance is futile.

I can't really tell but about 3:00 in the clip it looks like there is couple dancing balboa, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

You can read more about what other people think about Sun Valley Serenade over at Amazon.com.

What do you think about the video clip with Glenn Miller and his orchestra playing "In the Mood? Tell me.

Watch the Birdie - Hellzapoppin

Usually you will hear the song Watch the Birdie sung by Anita O'day but it first appeared in the movie Hellzapoppin'. Here is a video clip from Hellzapoppin' with Watch the Birdie, the song is sung by Martha Raye.



Before I knew about this clip I always felt like there where something more to the story than what was told in the lyrics, now having seen the clip from Hellzapoppin' (1941), the lyrics make perfect sense.

In this clip there is lindy hop dance sequence where Betty (Martha Raye) dances with Dean Collins. When experienced lindy hoppers think of Hellzapoppin they mostly think of another famous dance sequence from this movie with Frankie Manning, Norma Miller and Al Minns and the rest of the dance troupe Harlem Cangeroos. Therefor I thought it would be nice to show some other swing dancing from that movie.

The Anita O'day version of Watch the Birdie is a great one (Gene Krupas Orchestra is playing), but be careful when you are djing it if you got a lot of beginning dancers on the dance floor because it has some tricky breaks in it.

And while we are talking about birds and photography (well, kind of...), I must show you a cartoon that is played at every Christmas Eve on Swedish television at 3 o'clock. It, together with some other cartoons, has been shown for 30 years, it's a modern tradition.



What do you think of Watch the Birdie (both the Hellzapoppin' and Anita O'day version)? Tell me.