Body and Soul: An American Bridge

This documentary uses pop song "Body and Soul," composed in 1950 by Johnny Green and loved by jazz musicians, as a doorway to explore the complicated links between African American and Jewish music in the early part of the 20th century. Jewish female singers of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice, and Libby Holman, sometimes sought to "exotify" their presentation and sought out black songwriters. Al Jolson notoriously performed in blackface in The Jazz Singer, while Louis Armstrong, who recorded the first jazz version of "Body and Soul," was raised in New Orleans largely by the Karnovsky family, who bought him his first trumpet. Benny Goodman was among the first band leaders to integrate his musicians, adding the great Teddy Wilson and later Lionel Hampton. Though featuring wonderful production values, this film sometimes has to stretch to find the connections behind its raison d'être.