Louis Prima
Louis Leo Prima was an American trumpeter, singer, entertainer, and bandleader. While rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music, and jump blues, Prima touched on various genres throughout his career: he formed a seven-piece New Orleans–style jazz band in the late 1920s, fronted a swing combo in the 1930s and a big band group in the 1940s, helped to popularize jump blues in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s, and performed frequently as a Vegas lounge act beginning in the 1950s.
From the 1940s through the 1960s, his music further encompassed early R&B and rock 'n' roll, boogie-woogie, and Italian folk music, such as the tarantella. Prima made prominent use of Italian music and language in his songs, blending elements of his Italian and Sicilian identity with jazz and swing music. At a time when ethnic musicians were discouraged from openly stressing their ethnicity, Prima's conspicuous embrace of his Sicilian ethnicity opened the doors for other Italian-American and ethnic American musicians to display their ethnic roots.
Prima is also known for providing the voice for the orangutan King Louie in the 1967 Disney film The Jungle Book. Description above from the Wikipedia article Louis Prima, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 2.632 |
Birthday | 1910-12-07 |
Place of Birth | New Orleans, Louisiana, USA |
Also Known As |
2010
Louis Prima: In Person!
0/0
A retrospective of rare performances highlighting the many phases of Prima's remarkable 50+ year career. Culled from the basements and shelves of TV a...
Watch Now
Louis Prima: In Person!
1967
The Jungle Book
7.3/6182
The boy Mowgli makes his way to the man-village with Bagheera, the wise panther. Along the way he meets jazzy King Louie, the hypnotic snake Kaa and t...
Watch Now
The Jungle Book
1939
Rose of Washington Square
5.7/3
Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.
Watch Now
Rose of Washington Square
1961
The Continental Twist
4.7/3
Sam Butera and the Witnesses perform several Twist numbers to save a small New Orleans nightclub and raise the bail to get Louis Prima out of jail.
Watch Now
The Continental Twist
1958
Senior Prom
7/1
At a college party, a girl named Gay (Jill Corey) meets a guy named Tom (Paul Hampton) and they soon fall in love. Tom's bandmate, who goes by the nic...
Watch Now
Senior Prom
1936
Swing It
4.2/5
Louis Prima, between song numbers, tells how he happened to get a job in a Hollywood cafe playing music while a couple, unrelated to anything else, pl...
Watch Now
Swing It
1937
The Star Reporter in Hollywood
1/1
Part of Paramount Headliner: Hollywood Star Reporter series
Watch Now
The Star Reporter in Hollywood
1938
Swing Cat's Jamboree
6.2/3
"Swing cat" Louis Prima and his jazz quartette play songs and accompany featured singers and dancers.
Watch Now
Swing Cat's Jamboree
1959
Hey Boy! Hey Girl!
0/0
Meant primarily as TV fare, this standard, song-filled romantic drama stars Louis Prima as himself, and his real-life wife Keely Smith as Dorothy Spen...
Watch Now
Hey Boy! Hey Girl!
1936
The Champ's a Chump
0/0
As a ploy to sign a championship college boxer to a contract, Big Boy enrolls in the college the youth is attending.
Watch Now
The Champ's a Chump
1937
You Can't Have Everything
5.7/3
Starving playwright Judith Wells meets playboy writer of musicals, George Macrae, over a plate of stolen spaghetti. He persuades producer Sam Gordon t...
Watch Now
You Can't Have Everything
1938
Start Cheering
7/6
After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.
Watch Now
Start Cheering
1937
Manhattan Merry-Go-Round
5.8/4
In this musical comedy, a crooked record producer uses his mob connections to force performers to do their stuff. The trouble really begins when the g...
Watch Now
Manhattan Merry-Go-Round
1984
DTV: Golden Oldies
0/0
Compilation of DTV music videos from on The Disney Channel, combining tunes from the 1940s through the 1960s with footage of Disney animation.
Watch Now
DTV: Golden Oldies
1936
Rhythm on the Range
4/1
Cowboy Jeff Larabee returns from the east and meets Doris Halloway, a young girl, that he regards as a vagabond, till he learns that she's the owner o...
Watch Now
Rhythm on the Range
1999
Louis Prima: The Wildest!
4/1
Documentary about the mid-20th century Vegas bandleader and trumpeter Louis Prima, who showed the world what a rock show could be.
Watch Now
Louis Prima: The Wildest!
1963
Playgirls International
2/1
Another nudist "documentary" from Doris Wishman. A print of this film has yet to surface.
Watch Now
Playgirls International
1956
Jazz Ball
7/1
A made-for-TV musical revue, compiled from soundies and film and TV performances by jazz greats from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Watch Now
Jazz Ball
1975
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
5.9/9
Hapless driving instructor and former Gunnery Sergeant Rafferty, living in squalor near Hollywood, California, doesn't put up too much of a fight when...
Watch Now