State University of New York at Stony Brook
                       Stony Brook, NY 10025
 
                                            Krin Gabbard
                                            Associate Professor
                                            Comparative Literature
                                            212 749-1631
                                            04-Jul-1994 04:30pm EDT
FROM:  KGABBARD
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( [log in to unmask] )
 
Subject: Re: jazz soundtracks
 
Thanks to Blaine Allan for his posting about "Check and Double Check."  Yes, it
is the Ellington band in a memorable performance scene, but it's not
Ellington's music on the background score elsewhere in the film.  Much to his
chagrin, Duke was not commissioned to do a soundtrack by a major Hollywood
studio until 1959 when he did "Anatomy of a Murder."  "Check and Double Check,"
by the way, is especially interesting in the context of recent discussions of
blackface.  Two members of Ellington's orchestra, Barney Bigard (a light-
skinned creole from New Orleans) and Juan Tizol (Puerto Rican), appear in
blackface when the band is on the screen.  And this in a film in which two
blacked-up white actors play Amos and Andy.
 
Krin Gabbard
SUNY Stony Brook
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