Hollywood Rhythm, Vol. 1: Best of Jazz and Blues

Hollywood Rhythm: The Best of Jazz & Blues (Vol. 1) is a time capsule from another era, stuffed with tuneful artifacts. With the coming of sound to film, the excitement of hearing recorded music at the movies prompted these shorts, which date from 1929 to 1941. This collection, mostly from the Paramount vaults, begins with the 1932 "Rhapsody in Black and Blue," starring Louis Armstrong (a rather notorious film discussed in Ken Burns's Jazz). Racial stereotyping is rampant in some of these pieces, and this one has Armstrong dressed in leopard skins while playing trumpet in heaven. Absurd, yet Armstrong's performance is over-the-moon exhilarating. Three shorts respectfully showcase the composing genius of Duke Ellington, including 1935's "Symphony in Black," featuring a vocal spot for Billie Holiday. Hoagy Carmichael is spotlighted in a 1939 short, Fats Waller sings his classic "Ain't Misbehavin'," and the awesome Bessie Smith stars in a very creaky 1929 mini-melodrama, "St. Louis Blues," built around her song. Many of the films create a flimsy story to wrap around the music. In "Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho," the irrepressible Mr. Calloway receives a telegram while en route to an engagement at the Cotton Club, and he must improvise a new tune in the sleeping car of his train. A few of the films present scenes at the Cotton Club (complete with saucy dance numbers), and many evoke Harlem as the magical center of black America. The DVD bonus is "Jazz a la Cuba," featuring Don Aspiazu--"The Foremost Exponent of the Rhumba," if you didn't know. --Robert Horton. Musical shorts, produced to merely fill out the film program, have in many cases acquired more value than the features they once supported. Filmed at the Paramount Studios in Astoria, Queens, these films offer…