TV goes Hollywood when Steve Allen visits Universal-International to prepare for his upcoming title role in "The Benny Goodman Story."

“A tribute to the Swing Era evoked by skillful intercutting of rare material examining the varying fortunes of five ex-Basie sidemen. It looks at the years between 1930 and 1945 when Swing was in its heyday. Features a large number of artists including: the Count Basie Band, Buddy Tate, Earle Warren, Buck Clayton and Gene Krupa.” - BFI

Crime comedy.

Set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.

Art Kane, now deceased, coordinated a group photograph of all the top jazz musicians in NYC in the year 1958, for a piece in Esquire magazine. Just about every jazz musician at the time showed up for the photo shoot which took place in front of a brownstone near the 125th street station. The documentary compiles interviews of many of the musicians in the photograph to talk about the day of the photograph, and it shows film footage taken that day by Milt Hinton and his wife.

Young Benny Goodman is taught clarinet by a music professor. He is advised to play whichever kind of music he likes best, but to make a living, Benny begins by joining the Ben Pollack traveling band.