Remarkable is the only way to describe Oscar Peterson in December 1974. The jazz pianist was at the top of his playing prowess, which was always the case when Peterson performed. But on the BBC One’s Omnibus TV series, when André Previn interviewed him, the pianist exceeded even his own dazzling reputation.

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In late February and early March 1970, the Bill Evans Trio was in Scandinavia for a brief tour. One of the stops was the home of Finnish composer Ilkka Kuusisto in Helsinki, Finland. Another was a club in Sweden, probably in Stockholm. I know the performance took place around the same time because the playlist Evans used at the Swedish club is identical to the one in Kuusisto’s living room. [Photo above of Bill Evans in early 1970]

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Seventy years ago, in 1956, Elvis Presley began his rise to become America’s biggest recording and movie star. He wasn’t the first to become a national music sensation. Pop superstardom had begun with Bing Crosby in the 1930s and then Frank Sinatra in the 1940s. Elvis’s personal sacrifices were even more monumental. [Photo above of Elvis Presley courtesy of Ebay]

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Once World War II ended in 1945, Hollywood set to work on films centered on soldiers returning home. These included The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Till the End of Time (1946), The Razor’s Edge (1946), Nobody Lives Forever (1946), Crossfire (1947), Dead Reckoning (1947) and Ride the Pink Horse (1947). Most were somber, fictional examinations of marital re-adjustment, the struggle for normalcy and coping with PTSD. [Photo above of Frank Sinatra on the Brooklyn Bridge in the summer of 1946 during the filming of It Happened in Brooklyn]

One of them was a romantic comedy—It Happened in Brooklyn (1947), starring Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Peter Lawford and Jimmy Durante. In one famous scene, a freshly repatriated Sinatra rushes onto the Brooklyn Bridge, still in uniform, to sing of his happiness to be back home in Brooklyn.

Research shows that MGM’s production on It Happened in Brooklyn began on July 22, 1946, adding a second production stretch from September through November. The bridge is listed as one of the film’s official shooting locations, but no specific date has been found. So when exactly was he on the bridge filming the famous scene?

Estimates narrow the date to sometime between late July and August 1946, when the film’s New York location work would wrap and the production then moved to Culver City, Calif., for studio scenes. [Photos above of MGM filming Frank Sinatra on the Brooklyn Bridge in the summer of 1946]

As it turns out, Sinatra was on the Brooklyn Bridge only for a handful of shots. MGM combined actual location photography with the studio vocal of The Brooklyn Bridge, which he had recorded on June 6, 1946. Director Richard Whorf needed him on the bridge for just a handful of distance shots, one of the few MGM musicals of the period to use authentic New York locations v. a studio set.

On the bridge, Sinatra likely sang The Brooklyn Bridge a cappella or to his June recording played through speakers near the cameras. The sound you hear is the June 1946 studio recording. Many of the close-ups of Sinatra and more technically demanding shots were likely shot on the MGM lot in California, where lighting and sound could be controlled.

You’ll notice that Sinatra spends a good amount of time against railings, next to suspension cables and bridge elements rather than actually strolling the pedestrian walkway. These tight shots create the impression the entire scene was shot on the bridge. Welcome to the magic of movie-making.

So, 80 years later, here’s Sinatra on the Brooklyn Bridge, likely early on a warm summer Sunday morning, lip-syncing The Brooklyn Bridge for It happened in Brooklyn. The song was by Sammy Cahn (lyrics) and Jule Styne (music), and was released on a 78 in April 1947, shortly after the April 7 release of the film. See the clip that follows below for the flip side of the 78…

Here’s the The Same Old Dream (also Cahn and Styne). Out of uniform, Sinatra takes a job at a Brooklyn music shop playing piano for young customers considering buying sheet music. He was 31 at the time and, in the film, after years in the war, his character is out of touch with the hip younger set that had emerged, though he eventually wins them over with his crooning version…

Paul Desmond’s finest work was with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, from 1951 to 1967, followed by his quartet albums with guitarist Jim Hall, between 1959 and 1965. Coming in third for me would be the alto saxophonist’s recordings with his Canadian quartet in 1975 and ‘76. [Photo above of Paul Desmond on the CBC, courtesy of YouTube]

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Like many major Northern cities that became a refuge for black families escaping Southern poverty and racism in the late 1930s and ‘40s, Detroit quickly developed as a music center. In the 1940s, the city was a jazz hothouse of young musicians and clubs. Then came R&B in the 1950s and finally soul in the 1960s.

Last year, The Best of the Best From Detroi…

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I’m sure you’ve seen Jazz on a Summer’s Day, the 1959 documentary directed by Aram Avakian and Bert Stern, and filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. The color feature was a breakthrough for jazz. For the first time, audiences were given a vivid taste of what top jazz talent looked and sounded like in a bucolic setting.

I’m also betting that you’ve …

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If there were a Mount Rushmore honoring jazz tenor saxophonists, you’d likely see the faces of Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Ben Webster. Each had a distinct style that changed the personality of the instrument. [Photo above of Ben Webster]

Hawkins had a gruff attack, improvising up and down a song’s chord changes; Young…

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Surf rock influenced garage rock of the 1960s, hard rock of the early 1970s, American punk of the mid- and late 1970s and heavy metal of the 1980s.

The genre was a euphoric, early-’60s instrumental genre born in Southern California that favored twangy electric guitars and galloping beats instead of vocals and romantic themes. The first major surf-rock hi…

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My favorite live Frank Sinatra performance is his April 21, 1962 outdoor concert held in Tokyo. Sinatra had a swinging studio jazz combo behind him on stage: Emil Richards on vibes, Al Viola on guitar, Harry Klee on flute and saxophone, Bill Miller on piano, Ralph Peña on bass and Irv Cottler on drums. [Photo above of Frank Sinatra performing in Tokyo …

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By the late 1960s, psychedelia finally caught up with the big bands. As free love, rock albums and hippie fashion permeated the youth culture, band leaders still touring started feeling groovy. Some experimented with LSD and mushrooms while others limited their embrace of the youth scene to fashion. All commissioned arrangements of new pop-rock hits. [P…

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The year is 1962. It’s a chilly day in early October, John F. Kennedy is in the White House, the Cuban Missile Crisis wouldn’t begin until the 16th, and a train from Stockholm, Sweden, pulls into the København H train station in Copenhagen, Denmark. [Photo still above of Dexter Gordon]

Stepping off is Swedish baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin. On the plat…

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João Donato (1934-2023) was one of Brazil’s most lyrical jazz and bossa nova pianists and composers. He came up in the 1950s at the same time as Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was seven years older than Donato, along with the first generation of bossa nova composer-performers. Once you’ve heard Donato’s piano and seen his smile, you’ll want to own every albu…

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There are many YouTube videos of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, the husband-and-wife musical duo widely admired by musicians and singers starting in the late 1940s. [Publicity photo above of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral circa 1960]

But most of those clips feature Jackie and Roy later in their career and aren’t of great quality.

So imagine my surprise when I came a…

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Henry Mancini was the most successful American film composer and arranger of the post-war period. Other movie-music maestros were significant, of course, but none became a household name nor did they produce Mancini’s vast number of catchy hit tunes. [Photo above of Henry Mancini courtesy of the Henry Mancini Estate]

But Mancini was much more than an art…

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Wish you could see some of your favorite big band musicians in action? I’m referring to artists such as trumpeter Conrad Gozzo, trombonist Frank Rosolino, tenor saxophonist Dave Pell, bass trombonist George Roberts and alto saxophonist Joe Maini, among others. [Publicity still above of bandleader Ray Anthony in the 1950s]

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Thelonious Monk was probably post-war jazz’s most significant and individualistic pianist. He had a keen sense of the piano’s traditional jazz past, particularly the work of stride pianist James P. Johnson, but his playing was also decades ahead of its time. Today, his cubist piano style is both immediately identifiable and still thought of as abstract…

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The late vocalist Carol Sloane had the grand misfortune of coming up in the ranks of jazz singers at the worst possible time. By the early 1960s, the marketplace was saturated with jazz and pop vocalists who had already made a name for themselves in the 1940s and ‘50s and were coasting through the 1960s and ‘70s based on their established renown.

To mak…

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In 1971, Woody Herman entered the rock era with younger faces and new compositions and arrangements in his Thundering Herd band. The music had a more youthful, hard-driving feel, and the first album to express his new revamped sound was Brand New. The LP also marked the start of his recording relationship with Fantasy. [Photo above of Gregory Herbert in…

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Teddy Edwards was a superb West Coast jazz tenor saxophonist. He’s probably best known for recording The Duel with Dexter Gordon in 1947; being the first tenor saxophonist in a quintet co-led by Clifford Brown and Max Roach, live at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, Ca., on July 13, 1954; and for composing and recording Sunset Eyes, which beca…

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