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...
Jazz and decolonization are intertwined in a powerful narrative that recounts one of the tensest episodes of the Cold War. In 1960, the UN became the stage for a political earthquake as the struggle for independence in the Congo put the world on high alert. The newly independent nation faced its...
A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.
From neighborhood ciphers to the most notorious MC battles, "Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme" captures the electrifying energy of improvisational hip-hop--the rarely recorded art form of rhyming spontaneously. Like preachers and jazz solos, freestyles exist only in the moment, a modern-day incarnation...
An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose original, avant-garde work has impacted and influenced people all over the world. A story about music's ability to entertain, inspire and transform.
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...
Kind Of Blue: Celebrating A Masterpiece incorporates material from the 2004 mini-documentary, Made In Heaven, including black-and-white still photography of the recording sessions and the voices of Miles (at the sessions), as well as excerpts of radio interviews with the late Bill Evans.
Inspired by Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver’s book Soul on Ice and dedicated to John Coltrane, Soul in the Eye marks the beginning of Black Brazilian films. The film is a metaphor for the legacy of culture and survival bestowed by enslaved Africans brought to the American continent and the search...
Four giants of the tenor saxophone -- including the legendary John Coltrane -- are featured in this collection of rare performances recorded in the '60s. Filmed for the television series Jazz Casual, which was hosted by the great jazz writer Ralph Gleason, John Coltrane: Four Tenors features...
Miles playing with sextet and Evans orchestra. A TV program hosted by Robert Herridge, The Robert Herridge Theater from Studio 61, and recorded in New York in 1959. With the legendary Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and enhanced by the Gil Evans...
The bold and ferocious harmonic imagination of John Coltrane is laid bare in this concert, captured at the Comblain-La-Tour Festival in Belgium, 1965. Alongside his famed quartet, he delivers a transcendent performance that is marked by the total physicality of the music – four sets of hands...
An exemplary television program performance (New York, 1959) with the legendary Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and enhanced by the Gil Evans Orchestra.
Although some of the production elements may seem a bit dated to modern viewers, The Coltrane Legacy [DVD] (2001) -- which is a remastered edition of the mid-'80s home video program -- remains a discerning compendium of Coltrane in action from three distinct eras of his career.
