Black musicals

I probably should have blogged this morning, but tonight's TCM lineup in the "Black Experience in Film" spotlight is Black musical. Three of the musicals have nearly all-black casts, while the fourth deserves brief mention for another reason: New Orleans, at midnight tonight.

Dorothy Patrick plays a young woman who moves down to New Orleans with her mother in the 1910s. She's been training to be a classical singer, but when she gets down to the Big Easy, she hears the new sound, the early days of jazz. Arturo de Cordova plays the man who runs the club where the proto-jazz musicians meet (including her maid, played by Billie Holiday) and perform. Patrick and de Cordova fall in love, but the professional paths separate them from each other as well as the black musicians.

The jazz musicians in this one include not just Holiday, but Louis Armstrong and his band. There's also Woody Herman, although Herman of course wasn't black. The plot is nothing new, but the music makes up for that. New Orleans doesn't seem to be available on DVD, which is a shame since the music is so good.