With the introduction of Safety Film in 1925, the home movie craze began. Safety was a non-flammable alternative to the highly inflammatory nitrate stock which all movies previously were shot on. Smaller gauge cameras–16mm arrived two years prior in 1923–were easier to use and didn’t require much in the way of training to master. Thus everyone with a few bucks in their pocket and an experimental bent could pick up a Bell and Howell camera and amuse themselves and their friends with dopey movies of hijinks. (Or bore their friends with movies of family gatherings, of course). The above astonishing reel is in the former category and shows us Jean Goldkette’s great jazz band on tour in 1926. Clearly one of the gang took his camera on tour and this is most likely just a fragment of what was photographed. At the center of the whole thing is footage of the legendary Big Beiderbecke. Don’t ask what the fellow in the monkey suit is doing there. And I guess the guys all went on an outing to the zoo, if the shot of the caged real bear is any indication. The song is Goldkette’s terrific recording of ‘Clementine’. I know its hard for non-lovers of 1920s culture to believe that jazz once sounded like this but Goldkette’s band was a contemporary of Fletcher Henderson, who was a contemporary of Duke Ellington., Later in the swing era Henderson  began arranging for Benny Goodman, with Goldkette’s arranger Bill Challis arranging for practically every other swing band of the time…in other words its a short hop from one end of jazz history to another and the growth of the music occurs in a pretty straight line. If you don’t think 20s jazz is your cup of Earl Grey, keep an open mind. I find that 20s jazz has a lovely air to it and oftentimes kicks hard. Combine the music with the scratchy and haunting images of a bunch of loutish musicians having way too much fun one-hundred years ago and you have three plus minutes of…well, you finish this sentence. I have to eat my lunch.