Celluloid Improvisations logo Jazz on Film Mark Cantor

The Striders “Mississippi Flyer”

Video Varieties was a New York-based production concern headed by director/editor Leonard Anderson, and West Coast Studios founder George Goman. Video Varieties was formed to produce musical shorts for the television market. In 1948 they produced a series of shorts featuring the Adrian Rollini Trio. Shortly thereafter they partnered with United Artists Television to produce two more series, one featuring The Striders, a black vocal harmony group, and the other Shorty Warren and his Western Rangers, a “city-billy” combo based in New Jersey. While United Artists Television continued to produce and release television programs for many years, these three musical series are the entire output of Video Varieties.

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