Five evenings

This is a beautiful scene from Mihalkov's film Five evenings (1978). In the movie, the man (that you hear singing) - after being gone for 18 years - rings the bell of the woman (who unhappily wears curlers exactly at that time) and reenters her life as if only 18 days had passed.

Bane Bumbar

Old friends agree to meet after 15 years on a Belgrade raft. A wild party ensues. After a lot of drinking and unsuccessful recoupling, the raft is untied and drifts aimlessly – with the last men standing - down the river.
This is the ending scene of the Yugoslav (Serbian) film Jagode u grlu (1985). The film itself is an ending epilogue to a superb Yugoslav (Serbian) cult series Grlom u jagode (1975).
In the film, the youthful freedom of the characters reemerges as aimlessness.
The series and the film were both directed by Srđan Karanović.
This song about lost youth, O mladosti - here performed by the Orkestar Jovice Nikolića Lepog - ended many a party in my day.
The rafts with live music on Sava and Danube are an old Belgrade institution. One should certainly do this prior to one's death – though the raft owners generally much prefer that the dying part is done at a certain distance.

The darker brother

Harlem Renaissance Art

Scruffmouth | MySpace Video

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

("I, too", a poem by Langston Hughes)

Back in 1929

Bessie Smith mourning for her man - blacker than midnight - who left New York for St Louis (he done left this town). A truly stunning performance.
The excerpt is taken from a short film St Louis Blues (1929).
The short was filmed in Astoria, Queens. Bessie was accompanied by the Fletcher Henderson orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir and, on piano, by James P. Johnson.

Weary blues

The Weary Blues, a video poem narrated by Dr. Allen Dwight Callahan. The poem was written by Langston Hughes (1923).

Hellzapoppin'

An excerpt from Hellzapoppin', a 1941 film adaptation of an earlier (and more successful) staged musical of the same name. Lindy hop is here performed by Whitney's Lindy Hoppers, a professional performing group of Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York.

Lindyhopping

A scene from After Seben, a 1929 sound short set in a Harlem nightclub, featuring also George Snowden doing the lindy hop. You won't have any trouble figuring out which dancing couple George Snowden, the Shorty Stump, belongs to. To the one that must have won.