Explore Black History

1929

"Black and Tan", an early sound film, marks the motion picture debuts of Duke Ellington and Fredi Washington,both of whom both star in the film. The film features modernist visual effects and the audio recording experimented with RCA's new Photophone System.
This film was a part of the Washington D.C. Public Library's circulating 16mm film collection housed at the Martin Luther King Jr. Central Library. The collection is particularly noted for the wide variety of African American and African diaspora content.

A musical film with the title Black and Tan. It consists of a single reel of black-and-white 16mm acetate film with an optical sound track.
The film opens with an RKO title card that reads in part, “Black and Tan with Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra by arrangement with Irving Mills…Recorded by RCA Photophone System.” A trumpet and piano are heard playing the tune “Black and Tan” over the credits.
The first scene introduces Duke Ellington sitting at a piano with his back to the camera and a man holding a trumpet sitting next to him in a chair. They are discussing the tune heard over the credit sequence and writing out the arrangements for the song. While they are playing, there is an exterior shot of two men approaching and entering a building on a city street. Inside, the men look for an apartment, attempting to read the numbers on the door. They are there to repossess the piano for nonpayment. Throughout the scene they speak using malapropisms to communicate with the larger man leaving the smaller man to singlehandedly move the heavy piano.
As this happens, Duke’s girlfriend, Fredi, (played by Fredi Washington) enters the apartment announcing that she has a new job dancing at a club, and that Duke and his band will accompany her act on the piano. She tries to stop the men from taking the instrument by offering money, but they refuse. However, they relent to let it stay a few more days when she offers a bottle of gin. After the men leave, Duke tells Fredi they cannot take the job because of the strain the dancing would cause to her heart condition. She tells him not to worry about her and asks the musicians to play the new music they have been writing. There is a dissolve to Duke’s hands playing rapidly on piano keys along with jazzy music. The camera dollies out to show a line of five men in tails tap dancing reflected in the shiny floor of the club. The long shot reveals Duke Ellington on an art-deco style stage, sitting at the piano with his orchestra behind him. The dancers walk off to an applause and a curtain closes briefly. The dancers then return to the stage, moving in unison, so closely that they resemble one person. The shots cut back and forth between their reflection on the floor and the long shot.
Leaning against a wall backstage, Fredi is seen wiping her brow. The MC comes out and welcomes back Fredi, who has been away from the club after and illness. Though weak, she enters the stage and performs. The camera shoots up through a glass floor from below; as she spins, the panels of her dress create a big circle. While twirling, she holds her heart, staggers, and collapses onstage. She is subsequently carried offstage while the MC tries to keep the show going but Duke, concerned, walks off stage.
In the last scene, a chorus and instruments casting large shadows on the walls sing a spiritual as Fredi lies in a bed dying. She implores Duke to play the “Black and Tan Fantasy.” As Duke, the musicians and the chorus reach the end of the song, Fredi dies, her vision of Duke becoming blurry and dark.

National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection

DC Public Library Film Collection

Time-based Media - Moving Images

Harlem Renaissance (New Negro Movement)

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Transferred from the DC Public Library

National Museum of African American History and Culture

2017.55.3.1ab

sound films
black-and-white films (visual works)
short subjects
16mm (photographic film size)

acetate film

Duration: 20 min.
Physical extent (film): 700 ft

Title • Black and Tan

nmaahc_2017.55.3.1ab

NMAAHC

BLACK AND TAN

National Museum of African American History and Culture

CC0

1920s

Ellington, Duke • Cotton Club • D.C. Public Library • Duke Ellington Orchestra • Washington, Fredi • Connor, Edgar • Murphy, Dudley • Lovejoy, Alec

New York City • District of Columbia • Harlem • New York County • Astoria • United States • North and Central America • Queens County • Washington

Harlem Renaissance (New Negro Movement) • Conductors (Musicians) • Musical films • Composers (Musicians) • Dance • Motion pictures • Instrumentalists (Musicians) • Jazz (Music)

City • Washington • State • District of Columbia • Country • United States • Continent • North and Central America • Locale • Astoria • City • New York City • County • Queens County • State • New York • Locale • Harlem • County • New York County

black-and-white films (visual works) • short subjects • 16mm (photographic film size) • sound films

Use Restricted