Vince Giordano: There's a Future in the Past

Bandleader, historian, and collector Vince Giordano has devoted his life to music created before he was born: the early jazz of the 1920s and ‘30s. His 11-piece band The Nighthawks is known as the hottest band in New York, if not the world; and Vince is Hollywood’s go-to source for authentic period soundtracks, with his collection of vintage musical instruments and 60,000 original band arrangements. Vince is responsible for the period music in Todd Haynes’ Carol, Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, Robert DeNiro’s The Good Shepherd, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club, Gus Van Sant’s Finding Forrester, Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World, half a dozen Woody Allen films, and HBO’s Grammy winning Boardwalk Empire.

But between the moments of glory is the daily struggle to find work, manage his independent minded musicians, and schlep a van full of equipment and 400 pounds of music to every gig, with no road crew.

Vince, along with a handful of others, has managed to keep this joyful, energetic music alive long enough for a new generation of young hipsters to discover it and claim it as their own. If you weren't lucky enough to be alive when Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, and Bix Beiderbecke were revolutionizing popular music, Vince Giordano's Nighthawks are the next best thing. There's a Future in the Past captures the hard work, endurance, and mania of an artist determined to do the impossible, and the sheer euphoria of the music that changed the 20th century.