At the end of the summer movie season, the fledgling director Dan Pritzker believes he's got a film that will satisfy an audience unmoved by superhero sequels and 3-D extravaganzas: a black-and-white silent movie (with hints of color) based loosely on the childhood of Louis Armstrong. And for the price of your ticket, you also get music composed and arranged by Wynton Marsalis, and performed live by him and a group of 11 other musicians.
It may not topple “Toy Story 3" at the box office, but that is the premise of “Louis," a 70-minute feature that had its debut in Chicago on Wednesday and will come to the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Monday as part of a five-city tour.
“Louis" is one of two music-themed movie projects that Mr. Pritzker, better known as a songwriter and guitarist in the rock-fusion band Sonia Dada (and a billionaire scion of the family that owns the Hyatt Hotels Corporation and the Marmon manufacturing group), has been determined to make for some 15 years. The moment of inspiration came for Mr. Pritzker in the late 1990s, when a stage manager first told him about Charles (Buddy) Bolden, the turn-of-the-20th-century cornet player credited as a creator of jazz.
It may not topple “Toy Story 3" at the box office, but that is the premise of “Louis," a 70-minute feature that had its debut in Chicago on Wednesday and will come to the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Monday as part of a five-city tour.
“Louis" is one of two music-themed movie projects that Mr. Pritzker, better known as a songwriter and guitarist in the rock-fusion band Sonia Dada (and a billionaire scion of the family that owns the Hyatt Hotels Corporation and the Marmon manufacturing group), has been determined to make for some 15 years. The moment of inspiration came for Mr. Pritzker in the late 1990s, when a stage manager first told him about Charles (Buddy) Bolden, the turn-of-the-20th-century cornet player credited as a creator of jazz.
