The AFI Silver premieres a new documentary on Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks tomorrow afternoon. A live performance by the band follows the screening (Photo via Facebook).

By DCist contributor Marsha Dubrow

Grammy-winner Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, heard and seen on Boardwalk Empire and in many Woody Allen films, will perform his rousing vintage Jazz Age music at the AFI Silver Theatre on Saturday afternoon.

AFI is presenting the band as part of the festivities celebrating the new documentary, Vince Giordano: There’s A Future in the Past, written and directed by Dave Davidson and Amber Edwards. A Q&A with WAMU’s Rob Bamberger, host of the popular Hot Jazz Saturday Night, follows the screening.

The Art Deco Society of Washington is co-sponsoring the event, making the AFI Sliver, which was constructed in 1938 in the art deco style, the ideal venue.

“It’s exciting to play in a vintage venue like the AFI Silver. It has that charm, and really fits with the music, like being in a film,” Giordano told DCist in a phone interview from his home in New York City. “It gets everyone in the mood.”

The debonair orchestra leader has kept big band music from the ’20s and ’30s vividly alive in major films by top directors; six by Woody Allen, including Café Society, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Zelig, as well as in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club. The list goes on.

On Saturday, the 11-member, tuxedoed big band will be playing classics like Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo,” and a foxtrot version of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Ditties like “My Sweet Tooth Says I Wanna (But My Wisdom Tooth Says No),” “Sugar Foot Stomp”, and “Drop Me Off in Harlem” may also make an appearance.

These songs are among the 2,500 original song arrangements that Giordano brings to every engagement, ranging from Wolf Trap to NYC nightclubs, where he says this music is having a renaissance. The band has also performed at top festivals such as the New York Hot Jazz Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival, and clips from these concerts are featured in the documentary.

In addition to a vintage sound, many of the orchestra’s instruments are also originals. Giordano terms his aluminum string bass (circa 1929), a 1930s tuba, and bass saxophone, collectively, as his “heavy metal trio.” Giordano also warbles into a 1931 microphone.

Vintage-era TV shows and films are only part of the reasons why this music, dating back almost a century, is so popular today.

“The music from the ’20s and ’30s are reflections of the times and the people. In the ’20s, they were very upbeat, positive, full of fun. They had a great time with life,” he noted. And then, in the 1930s Great Depression, “music helped people get through it.”

So are there parallels to today? Giordano declined to get into politics, and replied only, “We need all the help we can get with our spirits.”

“We change the mood of a lot of people who come to hear us, if they’re down or world-weary,” Giordano added. “Some tell me, ‘This is better than going to my psychiatrist.'”

Stephen Holden, film critic for The New York Times, proclaimed that Giordano and the Nighthawks are “the next best thing to dancing on air,” and went on to choose the documentary as an NYT Critic’s Pick.

The AFI agrees. “What could be more fun than a Saturday spent in a beautifully renovated 1938 Art Deco theater, listening to live music inspired by the swing era, and performed by a world class jazz musician?” says AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center spokeswoman Abbie Algar. “The fact that Vince Giordano and his band have also lent their talents to film and TV makes it even more befitting that we host them here.”

All of this enthusiasm springs directly from Giordano, who has been at this for 42 years.

“This is my passion, my mission, my religion, my calling,” he said.

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks’ performance, Q&A, and screening of Vince Giordano: There’s A Future in the Past take place at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center on Saturday June 24 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $41.