Acting
Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden, known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was a jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone."
Peter Kuban, a Hungarian refugee, is about to be deported after jumping ship in New York harbor. He needs to find an ex-G.I. named Tom whom he helped during the war, as Tom can prove Peter's right to legal entry into the United States. If he can't find Tom within 24 hours and prove his case, he will be branded a fugitive and will be permanently disqualified for U.S. citizenship.
An itinerant medicine salesman sells joy in bottles with the aid of his band.
Jeff grows up near Basin Street in New Orleans, playing his clarinet with the dock workers. He puts together a band, the Basin Street Hot-Shots, which includes a cornet player, Memphis. They struggle to get their jazz music accepted by the cafe society of the city. Betty Lou joins their band as a singer and gets Louie to show her how to do scat singing. Memphis and Jeff both fall in love with Betty Lou.
An usher at a radio station studio pretends to be an executive at the station in order to help a pretty girl become a singer.
Good-natured and devout, a French house painter takes the train to Rome, where he has decided to go on a pilgrimage. There he meets a scatterbrained dresser who has been assigned by a music hall star to bring her the gown she is to wear on stage. The two men get stolen by Cleo, a charming thief. Once in Rome, the painter finds himself penniless and the dresser without the gown...
A film featuring some of best jazz musicians from the early twenties.
A New Orleans boxer leaves the ring to fight his inner demons.
In this musical western, a cowboy band is offered the chance to appear in a Hollywood movie and begins the journey to the West Coast. Unfortunately, the band ends up stranded in Texas and must take a job running a ranch. Musical mayhem ensues: Songs include: "Let's Love Again," "Where the Prairie Meets the Sky," "Don't You Ever Be a Cowboy," "Texas Polka," "No Letter Today," "I Got Mellow in the Yellow of the Moon," "Sip Nip Song," "Salt-Water Cowboy," "The Blues," "Little Brown Jug" and "And Then."
Short musical subject featuring the work of composer Hoagy Carmichael performed by him and featuring Jack Teagarden and his Orchestra, as well as vocalist Meredith Blake.
Circumstances arise that result in a man impersonating his uncle. As the "uncle", he finds himself pursued by his girlfriend's aunt, who does not approve of their relationship.
Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
In this swing version of the famous tale, a small town is overrun with rats. The mayor (caricature of Lou Costello) is in a quandary. His phones are busy with demands to do something. He hears a voice say: "what you need is a Pied Piper." Looking up, he sees a young man with a trombone (Jimmy Durante) who claims that he can run every rat out of town for a fee. The mayor makes a deal with him, and the trombone player goes to work leading the rats out of town with the playing of his trombone, and he locks them in a cage. Returning to the mayor's office, he's handed a bag of peanuts and thrown out. Unable to get the reward promised, the Pied Piper puts on his "Hank Swoonatra" (Frank Sinatra) suit croons to the girls. He leads them aboard a swinging showboat and opens the cage full of rats and they return to town, where only the mayor is left. The rats swarm the mayor's office and give him a bad time for his treatment of the pied piper. Production Number: D-10 A Swing Symphony cartoon.