''Jam Session'' is a 1942 short film, directed by Josef Berne, which shows Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing "

C Jam Blues "C Jam Blues" is a jazz standard composed in 1942 by Duke Ellington and performed by countless other musicians, such as Dave Grusin, Django Reinhardt, Oscar Peterson, and Charles Mingus. Background As the title suggests, the piece follows a twe ...

". In 2001, the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

deemed the 3-minute,

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

. The short 16 mm film was a

Soundie Soundies are three-minute American musical films, and each short displays a performance. The shorts were produced between 1940 and 1946 and have been referred to as "precursors to music videos" by UCLA. Soundies exhibited a variety of musical ge ...

, distributed by the Soundie Distributing Corporation for playback in the

Panoram Panoram was the trademark name of a visual jukebox that played short-filmed musicals (the effect being the equivalent of 1980s music videos) popular within the United States during the 1940s. It was conceived and produced by the Mills Novelty Co ...

film jukebox. ''Jam Session'' is included on the DVD ''Duke Ellington: Early Tracks from the Master of Swing'' (2006).

The orchestra

In order of appearance:Archived a
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Wayback Machine
* Duke Ellington *

Ray Nance Ray Willis Nance (December 10, 1913 – January 28, 1976) was an American jazz trumpeter, violinist and singer. He is best remembered for his long association with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. Early years Nance was the leader of his ow ...

Rex Stewart Rex William Stewart Jr. (February 22, 1907 – September 7, 1967) was an American jazz cornetist who was a member of the Duke Ellington orchestra. Career As a boy he studied piano and violin; most of his career was spent on cornet. Stewart drop ...

Ben Webster Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Career Early life and career A native of Kansas City, Missouri, he studied violin, learned how to play blues on the piano from ...

* Joe Nanton * Barney Bigard * Sonny Greer

References

External links

*
''Jam Session'' essay by Mark Cantor
on the

''Jam Session'' essay by Daniel Eagan
in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 347-348 1942 films United States National Film Registry films American black-and-white films 1942 short films Jazz films Duke Ellington Films directed by Josef Berne {{short-film-stub