Movies: Jazz

"What would the world be like without Beethoven?" That’s the provocative question posed by this music documentary from Deutsche Welle. To answer it, the film explores how Ludwig van Beethoven's innovations continue to have an impact far beyond the bo...

Will Handy grows up in Memphis with his preacher father and his Aunt Hagar. His father intends for him to use his musical gifts only in church, but he can't stay away from the music of the streets and workers. After he writes a theme song for a local...

A Broadway musical comedy star tires of the same old grind and flees the city. She runs into the skipper of a showboat who befriends her, and they make plans to put together a musical revue. But a competing carnival owner hatches a scheme to put an e...

A dancing bear escapes from the zoo and finds his way to Tom and Jerry's house. He dances with Tom, making it impossible for Tom to call the authorities; Jerry takes every opportunity to play music and keep Tom and the bear dancing...

The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Loo...

Elijah Jamal Balbed grew up in Washington DC in the midst of one of its most difficult eras, as its identity was being tested. As the city changed around him, his budding career as a musician exposed him to the people and music providing a voice and ...

Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex and Delia Lane, a jealous, ambitious drummer, Johnny Cousin, attempts to tear the interracial couple apart....

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 conversation...

A documentary about Cairo Jazz Festival's Amr Salah and his struggle every year to bring people and arts together in a country where 70% of people are under 30 and the Officials do not care about culture too much....

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 Cob...

Part jazz history, part true-crime tale, Kasper Collin’s new documentary employs extensive archival footage and new interviews to tell the tragic story of the magnificently talented trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common-law wife Helen, who murdered him...

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 -- thro...

A film without a beginning or an end, Moment to Moment is a rush of curious sketches, scenes, and shots that takes on a rhythmic life of its own....

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Jamie Cullum's live concert from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, along with tour footage and interviews taken from his travels in the U.S., and footage from his performance at the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K....

Anthology film about a night at airport Berlin-Tempelhof. Due to fog passengers can't leave Berlin by plane and struggle to find other ways out of Berlin....

A collectively made filmic opera in 35 parts. The Black and predominantly queer art collective, an evolving line up of poets and artists from across the world, abstracts and reimagines opera in any traditional conception. Set to hip-hop, blues, nois...

Herbie is a short 16mm black and white film by George Lucas and Paul Golding made in 1966 as part of their USC film school course. It is an abstract film with no story and no actors, that graphically depicts the reflections of moving light streaks an...

At the Katnip Kollege, we see a roomful of cats taking a course in Swingology. Everyone swings except Johnny, who can't cut it and has to sit in the dunce chair. Miss Kitty Bright tells him to look her up when he learns how to swing. Finally, listeni...

A documentary about the life and music of Justin Pearson. An enigmatic underground musician and owner of Three One G records....