If you saw American Hustle you know the tune that starts and ends the film, “The Jeep’s Blues,” performed by the Duke Ellington orchestra. This is the tune that brings Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) together. I rather doubt that many seventies strippers and conmen were into fifties Ellington, but whatever. The point is, Irv and Syd are made of finer clay than the rest of the cast, that they are, in fact, kind of like us.
It’s a good bet that director/writer David O. Russell is an Ellington aficionado, but it also tells us a lot about the commercial pressures on a Hollywood production that Dave doesn’t dare give us more than about 30 seconds of the tune, a gorgeous slow blues that Ellington wrote for his greatest soloist, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, aka “the Jeep.” Unfortunately, there’s no live video of Hodges performing “The Jeep’s Blues,” so I and you will have to make do with this static video posted by Johanna Jem featuring the version that Irv and Syd listen to, from the famous Ellington at Newport album, although there’s an even better one from another live album, the awkwardly titled All-Star Road Band, Vol. 1 Get it!
What about American Hustle apart from “The Jeep’s Blues”? Well, two-thirds of the way through it was shaping up as the coolest Coen picture the Coens never made, but then all of a sudden it went soggy on us, with a ridiculously happy ending. Skip the movie, and stay with the Duke.
