Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
It is tragic how good Chadwick Boseman is in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a 2020 drama based on the eponymous “Mother of the Blues” (Viola Davis) who became one of […]
Tag Archives: music
Stan Getz: People Time
Stan getz the documentary treatment in Jean-Pierre Larcher’s 1993 tribute to the saxophonist who brought bossa nova to North America. Made 2 years after his death, this French doc describes […]
Zappa
Alex “Bill S. Preston, Esq.” Winter directs this most excellent documentary on musician, composer, conductor, artist, director, businessman, ambassador and man who once sat on a toilet, Frank Zappa. Zappa’s […]
On iPlayer: Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things
Available on iPlayer for another four days, Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things is a 2019 documentary about a woman with considerably better timing than us. Leslie Woodhead’s film […]
Billie
The dispassionate sensationalism of True Crime continues to seep into sensitive cultural environments in this new Billie Holiday documentary. It starts with ominous text introducing the late journalist Linda Kuehl […]
Ronnie’s
The pandemic has been devastating for jazz, both in closing down a predominantly live art form and killing a significant number of legendary musicians. This new documentary spotlights the iconic […]
Pick It Up! – Ska in the ’90s
Pick It Up! – Ska in the ’90s is a 2019 documentary about the four-year window in which American ska music was popular in the 1990s. Taylor Morden’s love letter to […]
Been So Long: My Life and Music
The autobiography of Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen is now out in paperback, a book so beautiful it quite literally attracts butterflies. Been So Long charts the musician’s journey from […]
My Name Is Albert Ayler
Kasper Collin’s 2005 documentary spotlights the eponymous saxophonist whose freeform playing in the 1960s rocked the jazz world back on its formal heels. People talk about rock bands being crazy […]
Art Blakey: The Jazz Messenger
Two years before his death, this 1988 documentary spotlights one of the world’s greatest drummers and bandleaders. Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley’s fly-on-the-wall style avoids the usual retrospective approach by […]
