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"But, what you get is, first of all, a beautifully restored The Jazz Singer. So, if you've seen it 50 times, you haven't seen it until you've seen it in this digitally restored version. The sound is not from what you've seen in the past, which is from an early 30's sound-on-film version."


Yowza, Yowza, Yowza. This is Brian Marcus Decker, for the Jolson and Friends Blog located on the web at www.JolsonBlog.com, which is the first tech-nostalgic blog dedicated to the musical influences of Al Jolson and Friends.

Well folks, we are winding down with Part VII of our outstanding The Jazz Singer interview with Ron Hutchinson, one of the co-founders of the Vitaphone Project. Due to their extensive efforts working with private collectors, university film archives, the Library of Congress, Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment they have successfully preserved hundreds of early Vitaphone and Vitaphone Variety film performances. Included in this illustrious Vitaphone catalog include performances by the legendary Al Jolson, Burns & Allen, Baby Rose Marie, Ruth Etting, Weber & Fields, The Seven Little Foys, Georgie Price, George Jessel, Joe E. Brown, Sissle & Blake, Jack Benny, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, William Demarest, Joe Frisco, Jack Norworth, Molly Picon, Rudy Vallee and many, many more.

We will also have an opportunity to discuss with Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project the overall involvement with the recent Commemorative 80th Anniversary Edition of the legendary film, The Jazz Singer: This three-disc deluxe DVD EDITION is nothing short of fantastic. For Jolson fans and anyone interested in early 20th century performing arts, music, film and nostalgia, this is a must buy. This incredible three-disc collection includes more than several hours of digital transferred and immaculately refurbished soundtracks from the original Vitaphone Sound on Disc recordings. This special collection also includes behind the scene Jazz Singer photo cards, souvenir programs that include reviews, news articles, a Vitaphone brochure, replicas of postcards that even Al Jolson sent to Jack Warner following the death of his brother and more.

Perfect Holiday Gift: 80th Anniversary DVD Edition of THE JAZZ SINGER

Click here to shop for this three-disc DVD from Amazon

Free Jolson and Friends Podcasts

You can listen to the entire series of interviews including my current eight-part interview with Ron Hutchinson of the Vitaphone Project, Rich Conaty of the Big Broadcast radio show, Asa the Magnificent Minstrel, the Vaudeville series with author Trav S.D. and our favorite child actress, Sybil Jason.

To listen to the free Jolson and Friends Blog Podcast published audio files, just click on the listen to podcast icon on the top of this blog post.

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For additional information, special orders, discounted shipping outside the U.S., payments through Pay Pal, please contact: brian@JolsonBlog.com

To order please specify style (Jolson, Cantor, Moon, Jolie, Houdini King of Cards, World's Greatest Mystery Man, History of Old Time Baseball, Amusing Boardwalk, Sherlock Double Profile, Sherlock Improbable, Sudoku), quantity, size, t-shirt color (white/natural or black) and your shipping address. Please send checks to:

Brian Marcus Decker
24 Arverne Road
West Orange, NJ 07052

Jolson Blog: Jazz Singer and Vitaphone Interview with Ron Hutchinson Part VII

"These are not museum pieces. These are really entertaining films. And, so there are like three or four hours. So, when you get the set, block out a lot of time, because you're not going to want to turn the DVD player off after you start."


Brian Marcus Decker: As I mentioned earlier, this newly-released, three-disc deluxe DVD edition commemorative 80th Anniversary Edition of The Jazz Singer is marvelous. In fact, it exceeded any expectations I ever had. The quality of both the audio and the visual restorations of most of the material is really, really stunning.

Beyond just The Jazz Singer and A Plantation Act, since it is a three-disc set, we kind of go through each one of them. Could you provide us an overview of some of the other material on Disc 1?

Ron Hutchinson: I was very lucky to be able to work on this work with Warner Home Video, the producer, George Feltenstein [sounds like], who has had this as a goal to do for I think the last 10 years, and was able to do it. First of all, I was shocked at how little it cost. And this is not a promotion. It was like how do you get 10 hours or more of stuff on Amazon for around $28? It's just unbelievable.

But, what you get is, first of all, a beautifully restored The Jazz Singer. So, if you've seen it 50 times, you haven't seen it until you've seen it in this digitally restored version. The sound is not from what you've seen in the past, which is from an early 30's sound-on-film version. They went back to the original discs. We actually recorded them downstairs in my house here, a bunch of years ago. So, you get the absolute most sound out of it. And it's digitally cleaned up, but not to the point where you get any false echo or anything. They got the best negatives in existence, which, again, you have not seen. They have helped to clean it up with some digital efforts. But it is just awesome. It's like it was made yesterday.

Separately on that first disc is there's an audio commentary track that I and band leader Vince Giordano do. And hopefully, we add some perspective on some of the individual scenes and the background and so on. First time I'd ever done that, but it was a lot of fun doing that.

And then, in the next DVD, there is a brand new feature length documentary all about the coming of sound. And I must tell you, a little over a year ago, when I first heard about this, I thought this might be some cursory, quick, cheap look at talking pictures, how they came to be. This is an absolutely stellar job. And they talk about Edison and you see Edison talkies from 1913. You see all about Fox Movietone and all the tests. It's just incredible; lots of interviews from Baby Rose Marie to you name it. And it's a feature-length documentary.

And then there are a whole bunch of shorts, I think, five or six, that are all about the coming of sound, from Fleischer Studios in 1929, just wonderful stuff. There is one of my favorite cartoons ever, which is basically the cartoon version of The Jazz Singer. And the title, do you know the title?

Brian Marcus Decker: I Love to Singa.

Ron Hutchinson: I Love to Singa, wonderful. People have bought the set just because of I Love to Singa, Brian. And basically, it's got Owl Jolson instead of Al Jolson and wonderful, beautiful Technicolor short from 1936. Of course, it uses its song from The Singing Kid, I Love to Singa, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

And then, I think the gem of the package is Disc 3, which for the first time on DVD, and mostly the first time ever anywhere on any format of home video, are 24 1926 to 1930 restored Vitaphone shorts. All of these were made originally sound-on-disc, vaudeville. There, of course, is A Plantation Act. There's Baby Rose Marie, Burns and Allen. But then, there's a whole slew of vaudevillians you never heard of, but after you see them, you're going to say, "Well, why didn't I know about these people?" They are just wonderful, very entertaining. These are not museum pieces. These are really entertaining films. And, so there are like three or four hours. So, when you get the set, block out a lot of time, because you're not going to want to turn the DVD player off after you start.

Brian Marcus Decker: There were so many fantastic, fantastic things that were in there. Also, if you never saw A Day at Santa Anita, actually, I had bought it because it was actually included in bonus DVD material with one of the recent James Cagney releases (Each Dawn I Die). But, that, itself, stars one of our favorite child actresses and friend of the Jolson Blog Community, Sybil Jason.

Ron Hutchinson: Oh, yeah.

Brian Marcus Decker: And Sybil is just one of my favorite people and there are so many special appearances by Jolie, Ruby Keeler, Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis and a cast of thousands of people who were in many of the Warner Bros. stable movies.

Ron Hutchinson: And in beautiful Technicolor, too.

Brian Marcus Decker: Absolutely. In addition, I do think you're right. I had spent probably the most amount of time with Disc 3, which did have over three hours of material. There is everything from barbershop quartets to all girl orchestras. And I've actually seen some of these Vitaphone Variety shorts before at special screenings, performances in New York, and exhibitions, as well as I had seen the documentaries. One of them was on vaudeville, which actually did include things like the Baby Rose Marie. However, the variety and quantity of some of the obscure material was almost overwhelming in a very good way and really needed to be savored the way that you might savor a very old, rare bottle of wine, one sip at a time.

There were a number of these early talking Vitaphone Variety shorts that were filmed actually in New York City featuring some of these vaudeville performers. While some of these performers would go on to have very, very successful careers in film, the question came up that some of these performers, it almost feels like you could hear the death bells tolling for them. In fact, who were some of these more obscure vaudevillian performers? And can you share with us some of your favorite material on Disk 3?

Ron Hutchinson: Yeah. Well, of course, what happens is when we work with Warner Bros. and UCLA and we give them a title of a vaudeville short, Mayer & Evans, well whoever heard of them? I hadn't heard of them. It just sounded like it might be good, based on a little bit of written material or maybe hearing a disc. So, these are really obscure. These were mainly, I'd say, either kind of like high second string, say B plus level performers. And they were touring in vaudeville, which by 1927- 28, mainly because of radio and the beginning of talking pictures, was already seen as starting to die. But, big-time vaudeville still existed.

So, you see some of these performers, who other than the title, we don't have a clue. And then, yet, after they're restored, I think the telling thing was Robert Gitt, the Head of Preservation at UCLA, who actually oversees all of the work on these shorts, was mainly interested from an historical perspective and a technical perspective. He was not really into the content, which was fine. And when I would start to get from him, after the first few years of the Vitaphone project, a call, "Ron, this thing is fantastic; this is hilarious," he was getting into and getting caught up with the performances. So, they were a comedy team.

There's a comedy team on the set, which is probably the biggest hit of every show when we screen these publicly, Shaw and Lee. These are two deadpan comics, delivering one bad joke after the other, beautifully timed, some comedy songs. And we've shown it at Film Forum and people are apoplectic when they see them. They were just so funny.

Certainly, Baby Rose Marie after each song, always got applause in these public screenings, and so on. And then, there are some wonderful bands. Separate from all of vaudeville, the jazz performers of today are just in love with these shorts and they see these great, great performers playing as they did, not only on stages, but at dances and so on. So, there's a lot of stuff to be enjoyed. I have to tell you, Brian, this set has done extremely well. This is a litmus test of how much more early stuff is going to get released on DVD. And fortunately, it passed the test beautifully on Amazon when it was released in mid-October of 2007. Keep in mind, to find a black and white film of any kind, Citizen Kane or anything in the top 5,000, is incredible. The first week, you know what it debuted at?

Brian Marcus Decker: No.

Ron Hutchinson: Of all of the DVD's, this is of every subject, pop, blockbusters and everything, number 26. And it was in the top hundred for the first week and then settled into the top few hundred, which, again, is beyond belief. It's competing against Seinfeld. So, I think it bodes well, because while this Disc 3 has 24 shorts, there are at least another 60 or more that people still can see right now. So, there's still a wealth of stuff to be seen and enjoyed again.

Next Up on Jolson Blog: Vitaphone Project Interview Part VIII: October 26, 2008

• Can you talk about some of the projects that you're working on right now with Vitaphone?

• How can this online blog community get involved and support the Vitaphone project?

Jolson and Friends Blog Required Viewing and Reading List

Perfect Holiday Gift: 80th Anniversary DVD Edition of THE JAZZ SINGER

This three-disc deluxe DVD EDITION is nothing short of fantastic. For Jolson fans and anyone interested in early 20th century performing arts, music, film and nostalgia, this is a must buy. This incredible three-disc collection includes more than several hours of digital transferred and immaculately refurbished soundtracks from the original Vitaphone Sound on Disc recordings. This special collection also includes behind the scene Jazz Singer photo cards, souvenir programs that include reviews, news articles, a Vitaphone brochure, replicas of postcards and more.

Click here to shop for this three-disc DVD from Amazon

Perfect Holiday Gift: No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous (Paperback) by Trav S.D.

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

Perfect Holiday Gift: My Fifteen Minutes: An Autobiography of a Child Star of the Golden Era of Hollywood (Paperback) by Sybil Jason

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

Perfect Holiday Gift: When Jolson Was King: (Paperback) by Richard Grudens

Richard Grudens has written an entertaining and informative (must read) book for anyone interested in the legendary, Al Jolson "The World's Greatest Entertainer".

"The book contains many facets of Jolson' career including those around him, his competition, employers, and comments from those he inspired enough to form their own careers, the issue of minstrel, blackface performers, fabled stories of the famed Friar's Club, a chapter of the infamous Shubert Brothers, and chapters covering Jolson's experiences in film, radio and his extensive USO travels. Covered too are vignettes of the theatres in which Jolson performed, and of those great theatrical competitors like the Barrymore's and where they were voicing their talents while Jolson was pulling them in at the Winter Garden, and a full feature on Jolson's films from the first talkie, The Jazz Singer to his famed bio-pics The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again." - Richard Grudens

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

Changes to Jolson and Friends Blog

In the upcoming months I am looking to continue to evolve the Jolson and Friends Blog and wanted preview some upcoming changes. I am continuing to promote the sale of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Houdini, History of Baseball and several other unique Limited Edition T-shirt designs (featured above) all with free U.S. shipping. The sales from these items help offset the cost of maintaining this blog. Your continued support is greatly appreciated and besides they are just great T-shirts.

Due to the time intensive nature of ongoing research, content development, production and maintaining and the Blog, the next blog update will happen on October 26th. I am continuing to work on several future Jolson and Friends projects including:

• Jolson and Friends Recommended Reading and Viewer Lists including cost-saving shopping links to find unique books, videos and more.
• Expanded global coverage of local events (please send me event info).
• Future podcasts of upcoming interviews and special performance-based content.

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