Tenor saxophonist Jimmy McGary was a major presence in the Cincinnati music scene from the 1950s until his death in the early ’90s. With music rooted in Bebop with a progressive slant, the Jazz legend was a session player for King Records and released his first album as a bandleader — The First Time (with a quartet that included pianist Pat Kelly) — in 1979. McGary’s spirit and legacy have lived on well after his passing and well beyond Cincinnati, as evidenced in this new documentary film.
Imagine an AM Radio Station with a dawn to dusk license that played nothing but jazz and comedy records. Did I mention it FLOATED in the Ohio River and changed the culture of a Community? The history of Cincinnati Jazz is long, wide, diverse and in the case of WNOP sometimes beyond belief. Saxophonist turned filmmaker Christopher Braig's second Film will focus on the people, music, and cities that kept "The Jazz Ark" sailing for 42 years from 1968 to 2000.
A portrait of inspirational jazz drummer and teacher Art Blakey with Dizzy Gillespie, many pupils including Wayne Shorter, the Marsalis brothers, and a surprising new generation of musicians and dancers.
Norah Johnes at We Love Green Festival
Jazz Sabbath - Leverkusener Jazztage 2025
Ella Fitzgerald visited Australia back in 1960. Gracefully stepping up to the microphone for the celebrated television event 'The BP Super Show', hosted by musician and entertainer Horrie Dargie, Fitzgerald delivered a mellifluous set of legendary songs in an intimate concert setting at The Embers Nightclub in Toorak Road, South Yarra Victoria. This rarely seen B&W television treat is considered to be one of the earliest audio-visual recordings of the 'First Lady of Song', backed by the smooth sounds of the Lou Levy Quartet. Beside Fitzgerald's performance of 14 memorable Jazz and Blues classics, the program also contains original BP musical interludes and jingles from the Horrie Dargie Quartet.
American dancer and choreographer Hermes Pan recalls his life and work as he relives the glorious history of the Hollywood musical.
The two musical masters swing out.
Oscar Peterson is accompanied by the stellar duo of bassist Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen for each concert performance. This is the classic Oscar Peterson Trio, considered by many to be the best Oscar Peterson Band ever. Oscar and the trio collaborate with trumpeters Clark Terry (Finland'65) and Roy Eldridge (Sweden'63) and re-create some of the excitement and fun of the Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) tours. Among the many highlights in this collection are the Oscar and vocalist-trumpeter Clark Terry collaboration on the ever-popular Mumbles ,and for the first time on commercial video, an Oscar Peterson Trio rendition of Tonight from his award-winning West Side Story album.
Tenor saxophone master Sonny Rollins has long been hailed as one of the most important artists in jazz history, and still, today, he is viewed as the greatest living jazz improviser. In 1986, filmmaker Robert Mugge produced Saxophone Colossus, a feature-length portrait of Rollins, named after one of his most celebrated albums.
Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.
"I swear, I wanted to make a “visual album” but this is literally the way the wind blew me this time."
T-Square's 30th anniversary concert.
Combining footage unseen since WWI with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible journey that spans "The Harlem Hellfighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural development.
A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.
The brilliant self-taught pianist Erroll Garner left his mark on jazz forever. His song Misty, which he allegedly composed between two concerts on an aeroplane, immediately became one of the great jazz standards and is still one of the most covered ballads in the world today. Who was the man behind the ever-friendly smile from the ghettos of Pittsburgh, whose talent brought him to the biggest international stages?
A Film About Kids and Music is a project arising from a music class. Conducted by Joan Chamorro, the big band brings together children between 6 and 18 years old, around a classic jazz repertoire with lots of swing, which gained the public’s attention and sold-out some of the most important music auditoriums in Spain.
Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."
A chronological look at the life and career of jazz musician, composer, and performer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012 ), presented through contemporary interviews, archival footage of interviews and performances, and commentary by family, fellow musicians, and aficionados. Emphases include his mother's influence, his wife's invention of college tours, his skill as an accompanist, the great quartet (with Desmond, Morello, and Wright), his ability to find musical ideas everywhere, his orchestral compositions, his religious conversion, and his unflagging sweet nature.
The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.