Inada plays Betty Yoshida, a singer and dancer from America who arrives in Japan to go on tour, only to be swindled by scheming managers. Penniless and cast to the streets, Betty is taken in by Oki (Nakagawa), a talented tap dancer who introduces her to a group of struggling musicians living and working together.
An exploration of the life and music of Miles Davis.
A dancing bear escapes from the zoo and finds his way to Tom and Jerry's house. He dances with Tom, making it impossible for Tom to call the authorities; Jerry takes every opportunity to play music and keep Tom and the bear dancing
An exploration of the individual components that make up a jazz improvisation, told in 13 parts.
Luiz Villas-Boas: A Última Viagem
Renowned journalist and jazz critic Nat Hentoff tells the story of his longtime colleague, pioneering TV writer/director/producer, Robert Herridge. Herridge, working closely with Hentoff, was the key force behind the making of some of the most important music productions in American television history, from "The Sound of Jazz" (1957), featuring Billie Holiday, Thelonius Monk, Lester Young, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge, to "The Sound of Miles Davis" (1959), with Davis, John Coltrane and Gil Evans ... to a pair of folk and blues shows, featuring Joan Baez's first national TV appearances (1960), which Bob Dylan says enticed the then 19-year-old Minnesotan to move to New York City and begin his extraordinary career. "The Jazz Television of Robert Herridge" offers Nat Hentoff's video-rich celebration of one of the great musical collaborations of the 20th century.
The emblematic festival Jazz à Vienne welcomes each year more than 200 000 festival-goers and 1000 artists. This documentary retraces the history and relives the highlights of the festival, since its creation in 1981 by Jean-Paul Boutellier, Jean Gueffier, Pierre Domeyne, Jean-Pierre Vignola and George Wein. The greatest jazz musicians have performed there, such as Miles Davis, Michel Petrucciani, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Lionel Hampton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie. So much so that in four decades, Jazz à Vienne has become one of the most important jazz festivals in the world, open to all styles.
The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Looking at the lives and careers of six individual singers (Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Annie Ross), the film not only talks to those who knew and worked with these queens of jazz, but also to contemporary singers who sit on the shoulders of these trailblazing talents without having to endure the pain and hardship it took for them to make their highly individual voices heard above the prejudice of mid-century America.
Explore the vision behind the iconic American jazz record label. Since 1939, Blue Note artists have been encouraged to push creative boundaries in search of uncompromising expressions. Through current recording sessions, rare archive and conversations with iconic Blue Note artists, the film reveals an intimate perspective of a legacy that continues to be vital in today’s political climate.
The Square Live at the Cat Club 1988
Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.
Pianist Harry Connick, Jr. and saxophonist Branford Marsalis reunite in a magical live performance. Filmed at the 2005 Ottawa Jazz Festival in Canada on June 24, 2005, the pair reprise original music from their duo recording Occasion, while also including Connick’s "Light the Way" and the standard "Chattanooga Choo Choo."
A teenaged shoeshine boy urgently tries to raise the remaining amount of money he needs to purchase a secondhand bugle before 6p.m.
A feature-length tour of Amsterdam's thriving jazz scene.
Jazz Icons: Quincy Jones spotlights a young “Q” conducting his “dream band”—an 18-piece orchestra of world-renowned players such as Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Sahib Shihab, Budd Johnson and Benny Bailey. This 80-minute program, featuring 17 songs, is one of the finest examples of big band jazz ever to be captured on film. Shot in Switzerland and Belgium in 1960, these two concerts are the only known visual documents of this legendary tour—an important lost chapter in an illustrious career which has spanned six decades.
The iconic concert from T-SQUARE in 1998.
Tracklist DVD: 1. Love For Sale (instr.) 2. Come Fly With Me 3. Luck Be A Lady 4. Pennies From Heaven 5. Witchcraft 6. It Had To Be You 7. The Best Is Yet To Come 8. I Concentrate On You 9. Wee (instr.) 10. The Lady Is A Tramp 11. Please Be Kind 12. Willow Weep For Me 13. You Make Me Feel So Young 14. Angel Eyes 15. I Got A Woman 16. Route 66 17. Toegift: de eigen nummers 18. Tot slot: Fly Me To The Moon
Narrated by Phil Harris, a longtime friend of Fountain's, "Pete!" uses performance film, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and a home videos to offer an intimate portrait of Fountain, the walking, talking embodiment of his hometown. Produced and directed by by John Beyer, the film originally aired on PBS stations nationwide. When it aired locally as part of a PBS membership drive, "Pete!" was credited with raising "more than had ever been raised by a single program in the history of WYES," according to a story published in The Times-Picayune in August 1980.
Filmed with an intimate three camera shoot by Antonio Ferrera, a close friend of John Zorn and a long time cameraman for the documentary masters the Maysles Brothers, this concert film captures the band performing a set of Zorn's Masada compositions at their home base in the Lower East Side, Tonic, in the summer of 1999.
Live archive release from the Jazz legend. Thelonious Monk Paris 1969 is a fascinating and important late-career document of the legendary Jazz pianist and composer in performance with his Quartet at the Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris, France on December 15, 1969. The concert also featured a surprise guest appearance from renowned drummer Philly Joe Jones. Filmed in Black & White.