Made in 1930, this filmic interpretation of African American composer James P. Johnson’s jazz and orchestra piece “Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody” is a highly experimental short movie. The piece “Yamekraw” was named after a black community in Savannah, Georgia. It was directly inspired by Johnson’s friend George Gershwin, who had achieved notoriety with “Rhapsody in Blue”.
“ Yamekraw ” was directed by Murray Roth, story by Stanley Rauh, cinematography by Edwin Dupar, based on the piece by James P. Johnson (1930). This experimental dialogue-free short illustrates a rural man’s trip to the big city and back with stylized sets that tend towards expressionism and surrealism. The imagery also includes racist stereotypes indicative of the compromised, sometimes disrespectful conditions under which such films were produced. The plot is fairly simple: a poor man ventures from his ramshackle, rural home to the big city, where a dancing girl in a dive two-times him Jimmy Mordecai plays the man and Margaret Simms plays his wife. Louise Cook appears as the dancer and Hugo Mariani as the bandleader. Opening titles: “Presented by Vitaphone, A Subsidiary of Warner Brothers Pictures. A Negro rhapsody which expresses the moods and the emotional side of Negro life. Yamekraw is a settlement on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia. Directed by Murray Roth”. A rural shack in disrepair. A farmer smokes a pipe. A young man steps out with his wife. A chorus joins in, waving their arms in shadows The wife sings, the man departs. A child cries. A steam locomotive engine . Funhouse mirrors, dancing, dutch angles, a mirror ball. A cabaret dancer makes an impression. The crowd scatters, the man returns home, the lovers reunite.
James P. Johnson (1894 – 1955) was a pioneer of stride piano and one of the key figures in the evolution of ragtime into what was eventually called jazz. He composed “The Charleston” which could be regarded as the unofficial anthem of 1920s America. Today he is viewed as a major influence on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Fats Waller, who was his student..
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
