Symphony in Black
| Symphony in Black | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Fred Waller |
| Written by |
Milton Hockey Fred Rath |
| Starring |
Duke Ellington Billie Holiday |
| Music by | Duke Ellington |
| Cinematography | William O. Steiner |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
9 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life is a nine-and-a-half minute musical short produced in 1935 that features Duke Ellington’s early extended piece, "A Rhapsody of Negro Life". The film, Billie Holiday’s screen debut, was directed by Fred Waller and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Symphony in Black represents a landmark in musical, cultural, and entertainment history as well as significant progress in Ellington’s own biography. It is a member of the first generation of non-classically arranged orchestral scores and perhaps most importantly, one of the first films written by an African-American describing African-American life to reach wide distribution.
Symphony in Black depicts black life in America and the composition itself (A Rhapsody of Negro Life) is divided into four parts: “The Laborers,” “A Triangle”, “A Hymn of Sorrow” and “Harlem Rhythm”. “A Triangle” features the vocals by Holiday and solos by jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Barney Bigard and Ellington Orchestra regular, trombonist 'Tricky Sam' Nanton. It is important to note that while Symphony in Black is the title of the Paramount film, A Rhapsody of Negro Life is the actual title of Ellington's composition. The piece has been largely overshadowed by its successor, perhaps Ellington’s most best known extended composition, Black, Brown, and Beige and thus significantly less documentation exists concerning it.
Despite that, on October 19, 1935, The Chicago Defender published an article entitled "Spotlites of Harlem", that announced the release of Symphony in Black among other current musical events of interest to readers. The film won the Best "musical short subject" Academy Award for its year.
In 1989, The New York Times published an article entitled “Celebrating the Variety of Ellington”, which discussed a revival of the piece by the American Jazz Orchestra in honor of Duke Ellington’s 90th birthday. "It contains some of Ellington’s most inventive, dramatic music", said Gunther Schuller (one of the conductor). Schuller went on to say, "If things had been right, he would have made a great opera composer. He takes crude scripts and writes music that underscores the scenario as well as any film composer ever did. It is greater music by the fact that Ellington went beyond the functional aspect of film music, and it’s great music intrinsically."
...
Wikipedia