The Association for Recorded Sound Collections presents the following program from its 2012 ARSC Annual Conference at Rochester Radisson Riverside, New York on Thursday May 17, 2012:

MUSIC IS WHERE YOU FIND IT: JUKEBOX SHORTS OF THE 1940'S: presented by Mark Cantor, Celluloid Improvisations / Las Virgenes

The amount of jazz, popular music and dance preserved on film is indeed astonishing. Among the most fascinating sources of music on film is the jukebox short of the 1940s.

Most people know about SOUNDIES, an audacious experiment in mass musical entertainment. More obscure, however, are the various companies that competed with SOUNDIES in the early years, or followed after their demise.

Our program will focus in the non-SOUNDIE jukebox shorts, many of which were never seen by the public, or that saw limited release at best.

Our program will include shorts produced by such obscure concerns as Musical Shorts, Ltd., Edgar Bergin Interests, Amusement Associates, and many others.

Perhaps the most wonderful thing about rediscovering these films is that while the stories behind the shorts are fascinating, the music is equally compelling.

Rose Murphy, Spade Cooley, the Nat “King” Cole orchestra and others will be featured in this audiovisual presentation.

THE ASSOCIATION FOR RECORDED SOUND COLLECTIONS (www.arsc-audio.org) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings, in all genres of music and speech, in all formats, and from all periods. ARSC is unique in bringing together private individuals and institutional professionals—everyone with a serious interest in recorded sound.

Videographers: Michael and Leah Biel
Editor: Nathan Georgitis