Jazz on Film: The Complete Story of the Musicians and Music Onscreen Review

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Jazz on Film: The Complete Story of the Musicians and Music Onscreen ReviewTo say the title of this book is misleading would be an understatement. It does NOT offer "the complete story of the musicians and music onscreen." It offers instead capsule reviews (a la Leonard Maltin's "TV Movies") of films featuring jazz music or musicians. The section devoted to "Videos and DVDs" reviews many films that were once available on VHS but are not currently available on DVD, so be prepared for some frustration should you wish to seek these out.
It is in the reviews that we find many errors and some questionable judgement calls. The first page that I opened to at random was the page with a review of "Pete Kelly's Blues," one of my favorites from the '50s. In that review we are told that Peggy Lee is featured in two numbers, "Sugar" and "I'm There." The only problem being, there is no such song as "I'm There" in the film; Peggy's other two numbers are the gorgeous "He Needs Me," written for her by Arthur Hamilton, and the charming "I Can Sing A Rainbow," also composed by Hamilton. We are also told that Janet Leigh's singing "is obviously ghosted." Except that it isn't; Leigh's own (barely adequate) voice is heard here, as it was eight years later in "Bye Bye Birdie." This is not some obscure film locked in a vault; this is a film that has been shown frequently on television and was available on VHS at the time of the book's 2004 publication (since released on DVD); what excuse can there be for such utter sloppiness regarding a film so easily available (and respected as Jack Webb's best film, nominated for several Oscars)? Yanow's credibility was shot with me from literally the first page that I read.
There are many other factual errors, at least one every three pages or so, way too many to mention here. As for the "ratings," let me just make this one statement: Yanow gives a six (out of ten)-star rating to Clint Eastwood's universally respected "Bird," and nine stars to the cloying, phony and overly sentimental "The Five Pennies," a Danny Kaye vehicle that almost completely fictionalizes the life of cornetist Red Nichols. If you agree with Yanow about the relative merits of these two films, perhaps this book will be of some use to you.Jazz on Film: The Complete Story of the Musicians and Music Onscreen Overview

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