Loving King of Jazz is not possible. Its value is historical. It shows how white American popular culture processed the new and catchy black music called jazz in the late 1920s. The film is about white jazz musicians, and it even stars the white jazz conductor Paul Whiteman, who is famous for commissioning George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in 1924. The film’s music is fine, Bing Crosby has his moment, and the ending leaves you stunned. It’s a musical number that’s supposed to celebrate America's great melting pot. Different ethnicities in their national costumes walk up two opposing ramps that rise up to the top of a single big pot; one by one, they jump into the stew as Whiteman's orchestra plays hot jazz. The curious thing about the scene is this: The ethnic groups that jump into the pot are all from Europe: Scotsmen, Germans, Frenchmen, Russians, and Scandinavians. No blacks, or Chinese, or even Native Americans jump into the pot. Black music scores the fiction of white purification. You have to see it to believe it. by Charles Mudede