The Last Of The Blue Devils - The Kansas City Jazz Story

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.

In 1955, on his report, a medical examiner wrote in the box: age, “about 53 years”. Charlie Parker nicknamed Bird just died, at 34. His death will be the ransom of a life that was not denied to the excesses or the consuming flame of genius. His wildest improvisations will open the door to future jazzmen. Between shadow and light this film will pay tribute to one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

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.

This feature length documentary charts the story of the great Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee. A legend himself, there’s not a lot of pioneers of roots and reggae that he didn’t work with, becoming the go-to producer for that dub sound coming out of Jamaica in the sixties and seventies, further cementing his legacy when he started licensing his productions straight to London labels. Diggory Kenrick’s doco calls on not only Lee himself to tell the story, but features the likes of U Roy, Dennis Alcapone, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Sly and Robbie, Johnny Clarke and Johnny Holt among others.

High school student Dai Miyamoto has his life is turned upside down the day he discovers jazz. Picking up a saxophone and leaving his sleepy hometown for the bustling nightclubs of Tokyo, Dai will find that the life of a professional musician isn’t for the faint of heart, as he must confront what it truly means to be great.

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.

Fictional film with documentary elements about a jazz musician in Berlin.

In 1999, on the occasion of the centenary of Ellington's birth, Franco Maresco commissioned Steve Lacy to perform ten songs by the Duke, which were recorded and filmed in Palermo. In 2024, twenty years after Lacy's death and fifty years after that of Ellington, that unpublished material re-emerges from the archive of the great Sicilian director and becomes a documentary.

"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.

A rogue Director turns a run of the mill Hollywood love story into a big band musical with the help of his crew and the out of the loop actors.

The history of italo disco, a musical genre that conquered the world during the incredible eighties, the most cybernetic decade; a style that was not just another kind of dance-pop music, but also the origin of an aesthetic, a true social phenomenon and the creative center of a very profitable industry.

On November 30, 2017 the National Park Service and National Park Foundation will present the annual National Christmas Tree Lighting. Popular entertainers and a United States military band add to the celebratory evening.

A tale of delinquent and lazy school girls. In their efforts to cut remedial summer math class, they end up poisoning and replacing the school's brass band.

Short documentary film that captures the spirit of a new generation of Latvian jazz musicians shaping the contemporary sound of Latvia. With a poetic visual style and personal reflections from the artists themselves, the film explores how jazz becomes a dialogue between generations — a space of tension, competition, and ultimately, self-discovery.

Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.

Tenor saxophonist, composer and producer Kamasi Washington and his band perform a special show at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater for the theatre's 85th year anniversary. Washington explores Harlem's rich musical and cultural history and the city's influence on his generation of artists.

Best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, Robert Moog was an American pioneer of electronic music, and shaped musical culture with some of the most inspiring electronic instruments ever created. This "compelling documentary portrait of a provocative, thoughtful and deeply sympathetic figure" (New York Times) peeks into the inventor's mind and the worldwide phenomenon he fomented.

A documentary about the record industry, told from the perspective of the art department. With over 40 interviews comprised of 3 generations, top creators of their day talk about the development of the art synonymous with the music you know and love. From The Beatles' Abbey Road and The Eagles' Hotel California to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Nirvana's Nevermind, hear the stories behind the most memorable art in music history.

Legendary singer Daniel Santos lives in Ocala, Florida, and prepares his biography with Secre, a young journalist. The memory of past glories makes him embark on one more adventure: a tour of South American countries where he was known as “El Jefe” (The Chief) and where he expects to be yet again acclaimed and applauded.

An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.