The merits of this picture lay rather in the execution of the great jazz scores than the plot itself - lacking and predictable. Starting by a little chronicle about the jazz development from its African roots till its further evolving into New Orleans and Chicago style, the story approaches the career's flourish of a young trumpeter Cooper, who falls for a "stride" piano player during the Great War. The movie also portrays the prejudice of higher classes against jazz valued as a 'vulgar' genre. A movie that certainly will apply the classic jazz lovers, with locations in Basin street and, at the end, a very special featuring of the most hot jazz players of early 40's as Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, Gene Krupa, Harry James, Jack Jenny, Joe Venuti, and Alvino Rey, not forgetting the special appearance of Connie Boswell singing "under a falling star". As against another movies as "Alfie", "anatomy of murder" or "Ball of fire" which conciliate good scripts with good music (Sonnie Rollins, Duke Ellington and Roy Eldridge respectively),Syncopation, even unprovided of a consistent story, still is a delicious option in order to evoke one of the most fruitful music period in this century.
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