Sonny Rollins - Salle Wagram, Paris

In a bland, utilitarian world of order, one worker finds his inner jazz

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.

The recording of a concert by the Martinů Voices vocal choir, conducted by Lukáš Vasilek, at St. Wenceslas Church in Opava presents listeners with a repertoire of famous spirituals in spectacular and virtuoso jazz arrangements. Spirituals, a phenomenon of American culture, gained popularity primarily for their catchy melodies and rhythms, which formed the basis for the emergence of jazz in the early 20th century. The program features mainly arrangements by Henry Thacker Burleigh, an African-American composer whose spiritual music influenced the work of Antonín Dvořák, among others.

An unprecedented collection by Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti, Live At The Shrine includes both a concert film/DVD documentary and a live concert CD, singularly conveying the beauty and joy of Afrobeat music – a combustible cocktail fusing jazz, funk, and traditional African music – while also communicating it’s fascinating roots and politics which began with Femi’s father Fela Kuti, the creator and godfather of Afrobeat. Live At The Shrine takes place in the Kuti family’s hometown of Lagos at the Africa Shrine, where every Sunday Femi plays to a packed house of revelers. With music as his weapon of choice and the Africa Shrine a temple of protest song, Femi continues his father’s fight, railing against the corrupt Nigerian government and staunchly defending PanAfricanism. Capturing this experience through interviews, street scenes, and the music itself, Live At The Shrine captures the spirit, passion, and hope, of a man and a people who are fighting.

The young American Pablo Menéndez came to Cuba to study Music at the National School of Art. Here he formed a family and became one more Cuban. Member of the Sound Experimentation Group of ICAIC and promoter of the teaching of the electric guitar in Cuba, he is, together with his group Mezcla, one of our most original musicians.

Norah Johnes at We Love Green Festival

Brüder Kühn: Zwei Musiker spielen sich frei

Documentary short showcasing the genius of jazz greats Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Cozy Cole, and Milt Hinton, among others.

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

Crazy is the story of a legendary guitar player who emerged from Nashville in the 1950s. Blessed with incomparable, natural talent, Hank Garland quickly established his reputation as the finest sessions player in Nashville.

A control-obsessed saxophonist must embrace uncertainty when he learns that a career-defining audition will be assessed on his ability to improvise.

A music documentary made with Sun Ra.

Magma - Myths and Legends Volume I

Magma - Myths and Legends Volume II

Magma - Myths and Legends Volume IV

This Emmy-nominated TV special highlights rare performance footage filmed between 1968 and 1969 at various US venues and locations, including the Westbury Music Fair, The Village Gate, and RCA Studios in New York City. Also featured are candid and personal interviews with Nina herself, revealing her unique views on music and life -- all expressed with her trademark intensity.

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."

Belgian jazz is enjoying a renaissance, driven by artists mixing jazz and electronic music. Around the Volta in Brussels, groups like Echt! and Tukan are reinventing the genre and exporting this ‘Brussels Sound’. This Jam documentary explores the effervescence of Belgian jazz and its international impact.

Diana Krall | Live at the Montreal Jazz Festival