Odd Børretzen: Mer enn helt all right

Scrappy documentary about a band that flew too close to the sun to make it really big. Albany, NY's Blotto rose from the ashes of the Star-Spangled Washboard Band and scored an unlikely hit with I Wanna Be A Lifeguard in the early 80's thanks in part to getting airplay on MTV when the network launched August 1, 1981. The film follows their struggles to land a major label deal despite huge success with touring and releasing their own EPs and Albums. First-time director Rob Lichter (aka Bert Blotto) puts together a funny, heart-felt portrait of the musical pranksters that is sometimes heartbreaking despite all the laughs.

A documentary short catching up with John Halsey a.k.a. Barry Wom of The Rutles

A love letter from an American soul to the city of Lisbon.

Documentary

Kansas City PBS is proud to present a documentary that looks back at the years Charlie “Bird” Parker spent in Kansas City and his lasting legacy on the Kansas City jazz scene. Bird: Not Out of Nowhere features rarely seen archival footage of Parker, interviews with musicians and historians, and live performances from Kansas City’s most talented jazz musicians.

Documentary that recovers the figure of the singer Terremoto de Jerez and his legacy.

Lúpína is about to play the biggest stage of her career at Iceland Airwaves. This film follows her in the lead-up, the rehearsals, and the work behind the music, showing the progress that makes one big night possible.

Als de wolken vallen

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.

"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.

The German punk band "Terrorgruppe" was found in 1993 and broke up in 2005. The band was essential for the developement of German punk. Songs like "Keine Airbags für die CSU" or "Mein Skateboard ist wichtiger als Deutschland" inspired a whole generation of punks and anarchists. This documentary portraits the band's history from 1993 to 2005.

Luiz Villas-Boas: A Última Viagem

An analysis of the gothic movement, which emerged in the late 1970s in the United Kingdom, through its history, codes, favorite themes, and sources of inspiration, the clichés it is subject to, and the different tribes that comprise it. Alternating commentary on factual images of the scene (concerts, nightclubs, specialty shops, etc.) with interviews with goths, including Olivier, leader of the band ROSA CRUX, Patrick Eudeline, rock journalist, François Darmigny, fashion photographer, and the president of Miviludes, the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and Combating Sectarian Aberrations.

Utilizing a wealth of archival footage featuring Prince, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis and more, They All Came Out to Montreux is an affectionate story about how Claude Nobs turned his Swiss town into the home for one of the world’s biggest jazz festivals.

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.

Comme un rayon de soleil sur la peau

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.

The first authorized biography of Christopher Wallace, allowing Christopher to narrate his own life story. Using archival footage and previously unknown audio to tell the story along with interviews with those that knew him the best.

The final episode of Tamino's writing process in seclusion before he heads into the studio to record Sahar

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.