History of Jazz with Willis Conover

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A motion picture film with the title History of Jazz with Willis Conover. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, 16mm acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. It opens with host Willis Conover welcoming the audience to the show and recapping a previous program. Conover then starts the discussion with a conversation about the development of African American music from West African music as drummers play conga drums on screen. He then discusses New Orleans as a music hub for African Americans before the footage cuts to a street scene of the Eureka Brass Band leading a street parade with their audience dancing in tow. In the next scene, he talks about the development of ragtime and describes how it is played as a pianist plays a ragtime tune on screen.

Explore Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture ↗