Melody Magic (1935) watch online HD

This is the second music short starring Johnny Green's orchestra from Paramount in 1935. In this one he plays dance music based on his own orchestrations. In days to come he would become a conductor for MGM's house orchestra and would appear in three lush Technicolor shorts in the 1950s playing light classical pieces.

This one, however, is competent but fairly ordinary. Although his orchestrations are fuller than typical for a dance band, within a couple of years jazz would evolve into Big Band, with far more interesting work from solo artists. He get a hint of that movement when a quartet performs a moderately hot version of "Not Bad", complete with some scat singing and a bit of novelty clowning when the orchestra :revolts" and gets transformed into high-pitched miniature versions of themselves.