"Ozzie Nelson & His Orchestra" is a very pleasant Vitaphone short featuring Nelson and his assorted musicians seemingly having a lot of fun with a few musical numbers and some rhyming patter. Nelson's dance band was surely not in the same vein as the popular jazz big bands of, say, Benny Goodman or Count Basie, but it does succeed in entertaining us in this short.
My favorite sequences: Ozzie opens this film singing a humorous medium-swing tune about the rigors of leading a band of undisciplined, fun-loving musicians (I especially admire the line "You'll understand if my hair turns to gray, / and they have to take me away"); this then leads into a sketch in which the dialogue is spoken in rapid rhyme as Ozzie interacts with his band, his secretary, and a couple of unwanted visitors. The closing number "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet" (reminding me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Little Red Riding Rabbit" [1944]) is fun to listen to as it is sung by the orchestra and treated in a highly mocking fashion; with more rhyming dialogue, Ozzie expresses chagrin to his musicians for "jazzing up" a sweet song, but they convince him to lighten up.
Being a jazz musician myself and an admirer of the big band sound, I find "Ozzie Nelson & His Orchestra" to be a nice treat. The other song they do, Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine", is not a song that I'm crazy about, but the orchestra at least does a fine job of making it swing.
My favorite sequences: Ozzie opens this film singing a humorous medium-swing tune about the rigors of leading a band of undisciplined, fun-loving musicians (I especially admire the line "You'll understand if my hair turns to gray, / and they have to take me away"); this then leads into a sketch in which the dialogue is spoken in rapid rhyme as Ozzie interacts with his band, his secretary, and a couple of unwanted visitors. The closing number "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet" (reminding me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Little Red Riding Rabbit" [1944]) is fun to listen to as it is sung by the orchestra and treated in a highly mocking fashion; with more rhyming dialogue, Ozzie expresses chagrin to his musicians for "jazzing up" a sweet song, but they convince him to lighten up.
Being a jazz musician myself and an admirer of the big band sound, I find "Ozzie Nelson & His Orchestra" to be a nice treat. The other song they do, Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine", is not a song that I'm crazy about, but the orchestra at least does a fine job of making it swing.