Robert O'Meally Introduces Classic Jazz Film at the Sheldon

New Orleans, a feature-length jazz film featuring Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, will be shown in Ethel S. Abbott Auditorium beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 8. This is a free event and the public is invited.

Columbia University scholar Robert O'Meally will introduce the film and take questions from the audience afterward. He will also present several performance film strips of Armstrong and Holiday.

New Orleans is a 1947 musical drama featuring Holiday as a singing maid and Armstrong as a bandleader. As supporting players, they perform together and portray a couple becoming romantically involved.

During one song, Armstrong introduces the members of the his band, a virtual Who's Who of jazz greats of that era, including trombonist Kid Ory, drummer Zutty Singleton, clarinetist Barney Bigard, guitar player Bud Scott, Bassist George "Red" Callender, pianist Charlie Beal, and Pianist Meade "Lux" Lewis.

O'Meally, founder and former director of the Center for Jazz Studies, is on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus this week as part of the Interdisciplinary Art Symposium.

This film event, the first in a series to be offered at Sheldon in the next year, is made possible by a generous grant from the Nebraska Humanities Council.