The Long Night of Lady Day (1984)
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Italian documentary
In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. gathered the best musicians from Detroit's thriving jazz and blues scene to begin cutting songs for his new record company. Over a fourteen year period they were the heartbeat on every hit from Motown's Detroit era. By the end of their phenomenal run, this unheralded group of musicians had played on more number ones hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined - which makes them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music. They called themselves the Funk Brothers. Forty-one years after they played their first note on a Motown record and three decades since they were all together, the Funk Brothers reunited back in Detroit to play their music and tell their unforgettable story, with the help of archival footage, still photos, narration, interviews, re-creation scenes, 20 Motown master tracks, and twelve new live performances of Motown classics with the Brothers backing up contemporary performers.
Blind blues musician Paul Pena is perhaps best known for his song "Jet Airliner". In 1993, Pena heard Tuvan throat singing over his shortwave radio and subsequently taught himself how to reproduce these extraordinary sounds. This documentary follows him to Tuva, where he takes part in a throat singing competition.
A documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White.
This warm 90 minutes documentary shows us unknown blues musicians from Mississippi. They play everywhere : on the streets, in dirty little bars, in a barber shop, in big clubs. The film really captures the true faces of blues and shows us that this music had nothing to do with nostalgia or record company hypes. Documentary on the Delta blues.
In 1937, after seeing a photo depicting the lynching of a black man in the south, Bronx-born high school teacher Abel Meeropol wrote a poem entitled "Strange Fruit" that begins with the words: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root." He set the poem to music and a few years later convinced Billy holiday to record it in a legendary heartbreaking performance. Intertwining jazz genealogy, biography, performance footage, and the history of lynching, director Joel Katz fashions a fascinating discovery of the lost story behind a true American classic. Written by Excerpted from Coolidge Corner Theatre Program Update
Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least one movie and at least one jail cell (for drug possession). And, we see the aged Baker, detached, indifferent, his face a ruin. Includes interviews with his children and ex-wife, women companions, and musicians.
A tribute to jazz diva Anita O'Day, completed just weeks before her death in November 2006.
The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
In 1971, to get breathing room from tax and management problems, the Stones go to France. Jimmy Miller parks a recording truck next to Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg's Blue Coast villa, and by June the band is in the basement a few days at a time. Upstairs, heroin, bourbon, and visitors are everywhere. The Stones, other musicians and crew, Pallenberg, and photographer Dominique Tarle, plus old clips and photos and contemporary footage, provide commentary on the album's haphazard construction. By September, the villa is empty; Richards and Jagger complete production in LA. "Exile on Main Street" is released to mediocre reviews that soon give way to lionization.
In the late 1980s, Tim Duffy, a penniless North Carolina musicology student, became deeply involved in Winston-Salem's drinkhouse music scene, an off-the-grid hotbed of gritty traditional blues. He began the foundation after observing and living with the deep poverty of the Southern blues artists he befriended and championed.The foundation now helps hundreds of older Southern musicians with everything from financial assistance to tour support. The film travels back to the early artists that were the inspiration for Music Maker, and forward to the current artists carrying on the Southern roots tradition. The film features performances, archival and contemporary, of Music Maker artists on tour and in the studio, as well as interviews with the artists and Duffy on the foundation, music and the blues.
A film featuring performances of several stars of the Latin Jazz music scene.
This moving portrait of legendary comedian Richard Pryor chronicles his life from his troubled youth in Peoria, Illinois, to his meteoric rise as one of the most respected comic actors of the 20th century. Often misunderstood during the height of his celebrity, the late superstar has never been profiled this extensively. Marina Zenovichâs revealing and entertaining film lays bare the demons with which he struggled and reminds us just how daring and dangerous artistic freedom can be.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd's reverence for his musical roots are center-stage on Ten Days Out...Blues From The Backroads. The guitar-slinger is featured with the Double Trouble rhythm section of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton performing with some of the greatest blues players of our time as well as lesser-known but historically significant bluesmen. Traveling to their hometowns to record everywhere from juke joints to front porches, from New Orleans to Kansas, Shepherd celebrates and becomes part of blues history with Ten Days Out...Blues From The Backroads.
"It must schwing!" was the motto of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, two German Jewish immigrants who in 1939 set up Blue Note Records, the jazz label that was home to such greats as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. Blue Note, the most successful movie ever made about jazz, is a testimony to the passion and vision of these two men and certainly swings like the propulsive sounds that made their label so famous.
Arguably second only to Muddy Waters among the Mississippi Delta singers who traveled north and pioneered urban electric blues (their supposed rivalry is the subject of one of this DVD's bonus features), Wolf was a big, imposing man with an inimitable, booming voice and a lasting influence on generations of rock & rollers--all of which comes across in the 90-minute film.
Bill Wyman, former bassist for The Rolling Stones, is your host for this documentary which offers a detailed look at the history of blues music. Bill Wyman: Blues Odyssey follows the rise of the blues in America as it travels from the Mississippi Delta and the Deep South to the big cities of New Orleans and Chicago, and then crosses the ocean to England, where the U.K.'s nascent rock 'n' roll scene helped spark a new interest and appreciation for the music. Bill Wyman: Blues Odyssey features performance footage of such legendary artists as Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and many more. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Black and white footage of performances, interviews, and conversations at the Newport Folk Festival, from 1963 to 1966. The headliners are Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan, who's acoustic and electric. Son House and Mike Bloomfield talk about the blues; John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee show its range. The Osborne Brothers perform bluegrass. Donovan, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Mimi and Dick Farina, and others less well known also perform. Several talk musical philosophy, and there's a running commentary about the nature and appeal of folk music. The crowd looks clean cut.
The life and times of Joe Albany, a little-known jazz pianist, is the subject of this specialized documentary that not only brings out the pianist himself, but the mood and feeling of the era in which he reached the top. Albany talks about the great musicians and singers he worked with -- Billie Holliday and Charlie Parker among them -- and how so many succumbed to drugs and died young. He is followed around at home, work, on the bus, and in other settings as he is interviewed by director Carole Langer. His sharp observations and dry sense of humor enliven the stories. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
THUNDER SOUL tells the true story of Conrad O. Johnson and the legendary Kashmere Stage Band. It was afros, pleated pants and platform shoes; James Brown, Sly Stone and Bootsy Collins. It was the â70s, and an inner-city Houston high school was about to make history. Charismatic band leader, Conrad âProfâ Johnson would turn the schoolâs mediocre jazz band into a legendary, world-class funk powerhouse. Now, 35 years later, his students prepare to pay tribute to the man who changed their lives, the 92-year-old Prof. Some havenât played their horns in decades, still they dust off their instruments determined to retake the stage to show Prof and the world that theyâve still got it.
Documentary about basketball star Dirk Nowitzki.
In the early 1970s, Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval (Andy Garcia) is torn between his own musical dreams and the dreams of his wife, Marianela (MÃa Maestro), a fervent supporter of the ideals of the Castro revolution. Also starring Charles S. Dutton as Dizzy Gillespie and José Zúñiga as Paquito D'Rivera, this gripping jazz biopic is at once a detailed portrait of a musician and a stinging critique
The search of several young, white men for blues singers who have been missing for decades coincides with the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1960s.
A music documentary about jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, with Chan Parker, Bill Miles, Dizzy Gillespie, Walter Bishop Jr, Sheila Jordan, George Wein, Bruce Ricker, Earl Coleman, Doris Parker, Roy Haynes, Tommy Potter, Lester Bowie, Jimmy Slyde, Santi Debriano, Henry Threadfill Sextet, Olu Dara, Charles Austin Trio, Paul McIsaac, Jacqui Casto, Steve Ben, Israel, Leroy Williams, Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins.
Wild Man Blues is a 1998 documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple, about the musical avocation of actor/director/comic Woody Allen. The film takes its name from a jazz composition sometimes attributed to Jelly Roll Morton and sometimes to Louis Armstrong and recorded by both (among others). Allen's love of early 20th century New Orleans music is depicted through his 1996 tour of Europe with his New Orleans Jazz Band. Allen has played clarinet with this band for over 25 years. Although Allen's European tour is the film's primary focus, it was also notable as the first major public showcase for Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn.
A biography of the Portuguese-Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti frutti hat. She came to the US as the "Brazilian Bombshell" and was a Broadway and Hollywood star in the 1940s.
In 1988, Chris Bryson was found running down a Kansas City street naked, beaten, and bloody wearing nothing but a dog collar and a leash. He told police about Bob Berdella, a local business man and how Berdella had caputed him, held him hostage, raped him, tortured him and photographed him over several days. Police later arrested Berdella and searched his home where they found several hundred polaroid photographs, a detailed torture log, envelopes of human teeth and a human skull. It was soon discovered that Berdella had murdered 6 young men in his home after drugging them and performing his sick acts of sexual torture. Some lived the horrors for only a few days, one for 6 weeks. After death Berdella would cut up the bodies with an electric chain saw and a bone knife, place the body parts in empty dog food bags for trash collection on Monday. Although he denied this, it is believed that Berdella used organs of the victims as in food dishes he would serve at his shop.
"Vesku from Finland" is a film about Vesa-Matti Loiri alias Vesku, probably the most popular film and TV comedian in Finland. He has created a significant career also as a singer, performer, writer and as a sportsman. He has recorded several albums, from folk songs and couplets to tangos. Some of his recordings are based on the lyrics of Hermann Hesse or Eino Leino, the infamous Finnish poet. During his unique career he has played in more than 60 films and recorded 30 albums.
This unauthorized documentary flashes back to the incarnation of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids and chronicles their controversial trials and tribulations. Included are shocking, first-hand testimonials and outrageous home video from those who were closest to Brian Warner (a.k.a. Marilyn Manson) in his local band-based town of Ft. Lauderdale. This title carries a parental advisory.
Documentary about a rodeo that takes place, for the most part, in Harlem.
"The Team that Changed the World," investigates the Globetrotters' impact socially and culturally, as well as their lasting effect on the NBA. Featuring interviews with basketball players, celebrities, politicians, and more, the documentary also shows how the Globetrotters continue to serve as "Ambassadors of Goodwill" and touch audiences around the world today.
The life of Reece âGooseâ Tatum who played in Negro League baseball and was an original member of the legendary Harlem Globetrotters.
Documentary about jazz player Ornette Coleman
A biography of the American rock band The Beach Boys, with interviews, concert footage and clips from movies and television shows they appeared in.
The true story of a British heiress's love for jazz genius Thelonious Monk.
Saxophonist Art Pepper (1925-1982) lived the kind of jazz life only found in Hollywood movies. His prodigious talent led him to top gigs as a teenager, but drugs and attendant criminal activity knocked him out of commission for virtually all of the 1960s and early 1970s. This documentary, shot shortly after his searing memoir, {-Straight Life}, was published in 1979, shows Pepper in the full flower of a remarkable comeback. His third wife, Laurie, is featured prominently; they met in the drug treatment facility Synanon in 1969 and were married in 1974. She took over his business affairs and helped him write {-Straight Life}. Pepper tells his own story here, but the emphasis is on an evening's performance at a club in Malibu, with the musician in fine form, backed by a terrific trio. (Tom Wiener, Rovi)
Althea Gibsonâs life and achievements transcend sports. A truant from the rough streets of Harlem, Althea emerged as a most unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s. Her roots as a sharecropperâs daughter, her familyâs migration north to Harlem in the 1930s, mentoring from Sugar Ray Robinson, David Dinkins and others, and fame that thrust her unwillingly into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement, all bring her story into a much broader realm of the American story.
The Real Bruce Lee is a martial arts documentary. It begins with a brief biography of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his childhood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Cheung, and The Carnival, each sepia-toned and dubbed to English. Next, there is a three-minute highlight reel of Lee imitator Bruce Li. Finally, there is a feature-length film starring Lee imitator Dragon Lee, which is obviously modeled after Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury.
Brooklyn Boheme is a love letter to a vibrant African American artistic community who resided in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill Brooklyn during the 80's and 90's that included the great Spike Lee, Chris Rock, Branford Marsalis, Rosie Perez, Saul Williams, Lorna Simpson, Talib Kweli just to name a few. Narrated and written by Fort Greene resident Nelson George, this feature length documentary celebrates "Brooklyn's equivalent of the Harlem Renaissance" and follows the rise of a new kind of African American artist, the Brooklyn Boheme.
The story of a major art collection of the Louis-Dreyfus family to be sold to create an endowment for education of African American kids in the Harlem Children's Zone. It is the story of actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus discovering how her father William's passions for art, justice and education connect in a single act of generosity.
An intimate 'fly on the wall'documentary about iconoclastic rocker Bobby Bare Jr., son of country music legend Bobby Bare, and his struggles dealing with the repercussions of a perpetual life on the road - the constant separation and the disconnect from loved ones back home. Musicians including My Morning Jacket, Justin Townes Earle, Hayes Carll, David Vandervelde, Blue Giant, Duane Denison, Carey Kotsionis, and Bobby Bare Sr. make appearances in the film.
Thom Andersen's remarkable and sadly neglected hour-long documentary adroitly combines biography, history, film theory, and philosophical reflection. Muybridge's photographic studies of animal locomotion in the 1870s were a major forerunner of movies; even more interesting are his subsequent studies of diverse people, photographed against neutral backgrounds.
A portrait of Keith Richards that takes us on a journey to discover the genesis of his sound as a songwriter, guitarist and performer.
The film follows 8 of the top high school basketball players in the US at the time of filming, in 2006. The plot centers around the first annual Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic game at the legendary Rucker Park in Harlem.
Don McGlynn's uncompromising and soulful documentary look at the tumultuous life of musician and rebel Charles Mingus is fascinating stuff. Mingus said of himself "I am half black man, half yellow man, but I claim to be a Negro. I am Charles Mingus, the famed jazz musician--but not famed enough to make a living in America." His statement summed up the conflict that plagued this musical genius his entire life: volatility, pain, prescience, and raw rage roiled inside a complex man, composer, bass player, and trombonist who transcended labels and refused to be pigeonholed into a single musical style--and who did not achieve real fame until late in his career.
Robert McGinnis' career as an artist is explored from the 1950s when he gained fame as a painter for Dell paperback book covers, through the 1960s when he created posters for such movies as "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "Cotton Comes to Harlem" and numerous James Bond features, up to the present as a magazine illustrator and landscape painter.
Jerry Lewis biography
Balkan Baroque is a real and imaginary biography of the Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Rather than a mechanical reproduction of the artist's work, the film tries to create a new reality by translating the performances into cinematographic images that intensify the fictional context of the film. Abramovic plays herself, but ,appearing in multiple forms, blurs her own identity. Memories and fantasies intermingle with day to day rituals. The chronological narrative often breaks to reflect the interior voyage of the protagonist from the present to the past and back to the present. The result is a visually impressive film. Balkan Baroque had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 1999.
A biography of the Three Stooges, in which their careers and rise to fame is shown throughout the eyes of their leader, Moe.
Jim Jones gives Dipset fans an intimate, all-access pass into his life as a C.E.O. of the Diplomats and into his controversial lifestyle. From his life in the streets of Harlem forming the powerhouse crew the Diplomats, to the wild parties in the clubs, behind the scenes in the studio, and also a look into his new gig as Director of A&R at the Warner Music Group - it's all here! Includes additional appearances from T.I., Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Young Jeezy and the Dipset Family.
"What if someone wrote your biography? Would there be horns and halos involved?"
Singer, songwriter, business man, family man, civil rights activist: Sam Cooke transcends all barriers of race, faith and talent. This first-ever biography of the definitive soul singer looks at his extraordinary career and personal life - from his gospel-singing roots through his R&B and pop music career.
A concert movie on an unprecedented scale, Rattle And Hum captures U2 - on and off the stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolour stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows, this is U2 at their best. Follow the group across America, exploring new influences, playing with the legendary B.B. King from Dublin to Graceland.
A documentary on the evolution of MC battles from verbal one-upmanship to street warfare.
Footage shot by a group of Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power Movement in the United States is edited together by a contemporary Swedish filmmaker.
An unflinching documentary portrait of the Jazz percussionist.
Dennis Rodman is on a mission. After forging an unlikely friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he wants to improve relations between North Korea and the US by staging a historic basketball game between the two countries. But the North Korean team isn't the only opposition he'll face... Condemned by the NBA and The Whitehouse, and hounded every step of the way by the press, can Dennis keep it together and make the game happen? Or will it go up in a mushroom cloud of smoke? For the first time, discover the true story of what happened when Dennis Rodman took a team of former-NBA players to North Korea and staged the most controversial game of basketball the world has never seen.
Socalled, aka Josh Dolgin, is the most supreme klezmer hip-hop funk artist in the world. A pianist, singer, rapper, accordion player, and magician, he's a demented Renaissance man and a multi-cultural mixmaster. THE SOCALLED MOVIE is a kaleidoscopic portrait which compiles 18 short films that display his electrifying craft and deep-rooted sense of history. Combining traditional Yiddish songs with funk, rap and everything in between, his tunes are densely layered tapestries of dizzying complexity. His encounters with legendary trombonist Fred Wesley (a key member of James Brown's bands) and klezmer hero David Krakauer are revelatory meetings of the mind, while his re-discovery of pianist Irving Fields turns the elder statesman into a YouTube phenomenon. With offbeat wit, intimacy and virtuoso performances, THE SOCALLED MOVIE is an enthralling documentary that shows how music can break down the boundaries that divide our world.
IRIS pairs legendary 87-year-old documentarian Albert Maysles with Iris Apfel, the quick-witted, flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven who has had an outsized presence on the New York fashion scene for decades. More than a fashion film, the documentary is a story about creativity and how, even in Irisâ dotage, a soaring free spirit continues to inspire. IRIS portrays a singular woman whose enthusiasm for fashion, art and people are lifeâs sustenance and reminds us that dressing, and indeed life, is nothing but an experiment.
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