Earl "Fatha" Hines - Blues Alley, Washington DC

A biographical film featuring the music and times of Bill Evans with interviews from Tony Bennett, Jack Dejohnette, Billy Taylor, Paul Motian, Jon Hendricks, Orin Keepnews, Bobby Brookmeyer, Pat Evans and more, including family and friends who knew Bill Evans well.

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.

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."

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

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.

"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.

"What would the world be like without Beethoven?" That’s the provocative question posed by this music documentary from Deutsche Welle. To answer it, the film explores how Ludwig van Beethoven's innovations continue to have an impact far beyond the boundaries of classical music, 250 years after his birth.

Elijah Jamal Balbed grew up in Washington DC in the midst of one of its most difficult eras, as its identity was being tested. As the city changed around him, his budding career as a musician exposed him to the people and music providing a voice and an outlet to the people of DC. Now tasked with preserving and sharing that tradition, Balbed reflects on balancing that responsibility with creating a musical identity of his own.

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 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.

Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poetry readings, a band rehearsal, interviews, and extensive improvisations. Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

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.

Stories and music of Black artists who relied on an underground travel guide to navigate the injustices of racial segregation while on the road. The Negro Travelers’ Green Book was a directory of lodgings, restaurants, and entertainment venues where African Americans were welcomed. Features performances and interviews with vocalists, musicians, activists, historians, and others.

A documentary about the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records and its German founders Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. As jews they had to flee Germany and the Hitler regime in the late 1930s. In New York they wrote music history with their record label Blue Note Records.

A documentary about the life and music of Justin Pearson. An enigmatic underground musician and owner of Three One G records.

The multi-award-winning Finnish documentarian Mika Kaurismäki, brother of Aki Kaurismäki (The Man Without a Past), helms the nonfiction work Sonic Mirror -- a protracted exploration of rhythm as one of life's driving forces. Revered drummer Billy Cobham serves as host, taking the audience on a long musical journey around the world and through a myriad of musical genres and styles. Cobham, Kaurismäki, and co. segue from Western concert halls and stages to the music of African tribes performed by Brazilian street children to the distinct music of autistic patients. Along the way, the filmmakers raise serious questions about the function of music as an identifying force, a means of communication, and an emotional release; they also probe the enduring connections between group awareness and self-awareness. The film ultimately builds to a hugely affirming and cathartic expression of music as collective expression that unifies its performers in spirit.

Satchmo. There are few people in this country - or around the world - who will not recognize that name. Louis Armstrong embodied 20th-century American culture. He revolutionized the world of music and became one of the nation's most influential entertainers. No other performer of his era has such a profound effect as a singer as well as an instrumentalist.

Director — and piano player — Clint Eastwood explores his life-long passion for piano blues, using a treasure trove of rare historical footage in addition to interviews and performances by such living legends as Pinetop Perkins and Jay McShann, as well as Dave Brubeck and Marcia Ball.

Weed. Marijuana. Grass. Pot. Whatever you prefer to call it, America’s relationship with cannabis is a complicated one. In his directorial debut, hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy presents an unparalleled look at the racially biased history of the war on marijuana. A range of celebrities and experts discuss the plant’s influence on music and popular culture, and the devastating impact its criminalization has had on Black and Latino communities. As more and more states join the push to legalize marijuana, this documentary dives deep into the glaring racial disparities in the growing cannabis market.