Wow, what a find!
Loren Schoenberg is senior scholar of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and on the faculty at Juilliard. He has taught at the Manhattan School of Music and the New School and played tenor saxophone in Benny Goodman's band in the 1980s. Last week, he posted to YouTube two silent black-and-white clips from two classic recording dates for Norman Granz's Verve label.
The footage was found by filmmaker Christopher Seufert, who, Loren says, was permitted to share excerpts, Loren smartly added music from the record, without trying to match the audio to the visual. As he says, "It helps with the ambience."
Unclear is where Christopher found the film, how much more there is, who filmed it and how did Christopher manage to come across it. Can we expect a Granz documentary?
The first film clip is from the recording of Sonny Side Up, with Dizzy Gillespie (tp); Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt (ts); Ray Bryant(p); Tommy Bryant (b) and Charlie Persip (d), recorded in December 1957.
The second is from the recording of Ben Webster and Associates, featuring Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Budd Johnson (ts); Roy Eldridge (tp); Les Spann (g); Jimmy Jones (p), Ray Brown (b) and Jo Jones (d), recorded in April 1959.
Here's footage from Sonny Side Up...
Here's footage from Ben Webster and Associates...
