On October 19, 1948 RKO Pictures released a new movie starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo called “A Song is Born.” It is a light comedy and received mixed critical reviews. Despite being the top box office earner for the month after its release, it never broke even financially. It was a remake of a 1941 Gary Cooper/Barbara Stanwyck movie called “Ball of Fire” based on a Billy Wilder story. Both the films were directed by Howard Hawks, who never liked the remake.

Whatever your opinion of the movie as a whole, it is worth a viewing just to see the jazz and swing musicians that play themselves. The story revolves around a group of stodgy old musicologists who have been working for years on a comprehensive encyclopedia of music while living in a Victorian mansion in New York City. They have no idea what is going on in the contemporary music scene and send Professor Hobart Frisbee (Danny Kaye) out to research the question. During his academic forays into nightclubs and jazz bars he meets a host of music stars of the era. At one point they come together to help make the recording that will accompany the encyclopedia. Watch the linked clip below and see if you can spot Benny Goodman (who plays one of the musicologists), Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Lionel Hampton, Louis Bellson, Mel Powell, Laurindo Almeida and others (it’s not that difficult).

Here is a link to the recording scene from the movie “A Song Is Born,” released on this date 78 years ago:

"HOW JAZZ WAS BORN"