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Film Reviews
Clarence Clemons: Who Do I think I am?
Clarence Clemons Who Do I Think I Am? MVD/Virgil Films 2019 It's difficult if not impossible to become enraptured watching the late Clarence Clemons' biopic/documentary Who Do I Think I Am? . But as with an autobiography Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales (Grand Central Publishing, 2009), that delivered mere flashes of self-awareness, the rhapsodic sensation is unfortunately fleeting. It takes roughly half the ninety-minute running time of Who Do I ...
read moreMiles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool Firelight Films Director: Stanley Nelson Run Time: 115 minutes 2019 In addition to his place as a legendary jazz musician, Miles Davis has long been a cultural hero for the African American community and for so many others of varied backgrounds and ethnicity around the world. We all continue to marvel at his creativity, personal independence, and passionate willingness to go to the wall ...
read moreThe Harder They Come Collector's Edition
Jimmy Cliff The Harder They Come Collector's Edition Shout! Factory 2019 With the inclusion of six hours of bonus content in addition to its initial release in high-definition, The Harder They Come in its Collector's Edition may be even more enlightening on a cultural level now than it was when originally released in 1972. Yet the plethora of interviews, technical documentaries, film trailers, etc. can't wholly remove the exotic mystery inherent in director Perry Henzell's ...
read moreSantana Live At US Festival
Santana Live At US Festival Shout! Factory 2019 The Carlos Santana appearing at the US Festival in 1982 is not the same hungry street urchin transformed by the music he made early in his career with the band under his name. Since the galvanizing breakthrough at Woodstock in 1969, the group had changed with its leader, navigating through a jazz fusion landscape only to return, by this time over a decade later, to a more ...
read moreBlue Note Records: Beyond The Notes
Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes Eagle Vision2019 Seventy-one minutes hardly seems long enough to tell the story of a record label so profoundly influential as Blue Note. Yet even a marathon film of multiple parts could not capture the essence of this phenomenon any more completely and certainly no more succinctly than Sophie Huber does on her second stint as a documentarian (her debut was the critically-acclaimed Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction). With Beyond The ...
read moreBetty Davis: They Say I’m Different
Betty Davis Betty Davis: They Say I'm Different Native Voice Films 2018 The incisive documentary Betty—They Say I'm Different chronicled the humble beginnings and explosive career of the '70s trail blazer, composer and vocalist Betty Davis. Her bold music and incendiary stage persona was light-years ahead of the existing social norms and well beyond music industry categorization. Director Phil Cox tells the compelling saga with her voice, and through interviews with family, childhood friends, ...
read moreTeddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me
Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don't Know Me A film by Olivia Lichtenstein BBC Films / Wasted Talent / Storyvault Films / Tempo Entertainment2019 “The Love I Lost," “I Miss You," “If You Don't Know Me By Now," “Bad Luck" and “Wake Up." These are all unforgettable hits by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. The group epitomized the string-drenched, symphonic soul sound of Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records (PIR) that became the ...
read moreBridges To Bremen
The Rolling Stones Bridges To Bremen Eagle Rock 2010 Stunned by the brilliant pacing of the two and half hours plus that comprises the Rolling Stones' Bridges To Bremen, it's easy to see why Paul Sexton turns borderline breathless during the course of his essay in the booklet enclosed in the two-CD/DVD package. To the author's credit though, his comprehensive exposition of details about the iconic group's performance, near the end of a massive tour ...
read moreThe Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus - Deluxe Edition
The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus Deluxe Edition ABKCO 2019 The limited Deluxe Edition of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus may rescue the film from remaining (arguably) one of the lost artifacts of contemporary rock and roll. Originally set for 2019 release in this format while the iconic band was on the road in North America, a delay due to Mick Jagger's health issues now has the CD/DVD/Blu Ray and digital ...
read moreElla Fitzgerald: Just One Of Those Things
Just One Of Those Things Ella Fitzgerald Eagle Rock90 minutes 2019 In the public mind, Ella Fitzgerald was unarguably one of the great jazz figures of the twentieth century. She mightn't be fetishized the way Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Chet Baker have been--there wasn't quite enough tragedy in the singer's life for that kind of attention--yet perhaps more than any other jazz musician, Fitzgerald is globally synonymous with The ...
read moreBuddy Bolden: Out of History's Shadows
Bolden Directed by Daniel Pritzker Abramorama; King Bolden LLC Release Date: May 3, 2019 Buddy Bolden was a legendary African American jny: New Orleans cornet player at the turn of the twentieth century. His career was cut short by a psychiatric condition initially diagnosed as alcoholic psychosis but later changed to schizophrenia (then called dementia praecox), and he spent the remaining years of his life in a mental institution. But during his ...
read moreGreen Book: A Serious Comedy and Jazz Allegory
Green Book DreamWorks Universal 2018 Starting perhaps in the 1930s, African American jazz musicians and bands from the north, midwest, and west toured the segregationist South. There they found to their dismay that as much as they were sought after for performances, they were compelled to live in separate hotels and use non-white bathrooms and restaurants, a humiliating experience for men and women who were just beginning to acquire self-respect through their music. After World War ...
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