State University of New York at Stony Brook
                       Stony Brook, NY 10025
 
                                            Krin Gabbard
                                            Associate Professor
                                            Comparative Literature
                                            212 749-1631
                                            17-May-1994 11:01pm EDT
FROM:  KGABBARD
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( [log in to unmask] )
 
Subject: Extradiegetic jazz
 
 
 
I call upon my colleagues in the ether for help with my research
on jazz in the movies: I'm trying to locate the earliest American
films with jazz-inflected background scores.  There is, of
course, a problem in defining "jazz" here.  For example, can Ray
Heindorf's quasi-bluesy score with trumpet solos by Harry James
in _Young Man With a Horn_ (1950) be called "jazz"?  I would
probably say that Elmer Bernstein's score for _The Man With the
Golden Arm_ (1955) is jazz in spite of the fact that Bernstein
paid no dues as a jazz musician (but he did use many West Coast
jazz players).  David Meeker's _Jazz in the Movies_ is not as
helpful here as I would like it to be.  Does anyone know any
earlier films that use jazz extradiegetically?  Or does anyone
have observations on the methodological problems in such a study?
All comments welcome.
 
Krin Gabbard
SUNY Stony Brook