
14 Jun 2013

Filthy Betrayal
On the eve of graduation, a high school student finds herself dealing with both college applications and an unfaithful boyfriend.
Filmed in Chicago & finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland's polemical essay on the politics of music and race - a forecast of what he called "the death of jazz." A landmark moment in black film, foreseeing the civil unrest of subsequent decades, it also features the only known footage of visionary pianist Sun Ra from his beloved Chicago period. Featured are ample images of tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and the rest of Ra's Arkestra in Windy City nightclubs, all shot in glorious black & white.
Alex Johnson
Natalie

Faye

John
Louis
Bob
Bruce

14 Jun 2013

On the eve of graduation, a high school student finds herself dealing with both college applications and an unfaithful boyfriend.

04 Aug 2001

A documentary featuring archive footage to celebrate the 100th birth of jazz legend Louis Armstrong.

01 Jan 1968

A music documentary made with Sun Ra.


Late into his career, an elderly drummer comes to terms with getting older.

17 Sep 1992

This live recording was culled from seven September 1992 concerts given in Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt by the Ensemble Modern, a Frankfurt-based chamber orchestra that performs only contemporary music. Composed and conducted by Frank Zappa.

17 Dec 1963

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."

07 Jun 2025

The story of the iconic electronic music group Yello and the phenomenon of their 1980's hit song, exploring the song’s cultural impact and its enduring place in the American psyche.

17 Jul 1956

With socialite Tracy Lord about to remarry, her ex-husband - with the help of a sympathetic reporter - has 48 hours to convince her that she really still loves him.

02 Mar 2008

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.
03 Nov 2018
Renowned journalist and jazz critic Nat Hentoff tells the story of his longtime colleague, pioneering TV writer/director/producer, Robert Herridge. Herridge, working closely with Hentoff, was the key force behind the making of some of the most important music productions in American television history, from "The Sound of Jazz" (1957), featuring Billie Holiday, Thelonius Monk, Lester Young, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge, to "The Sound of Miles Davis" (1959), with Davis, John Coltrane and Gil Evans ... to a pair of folk and blues shows, featuring Joan Baez's first national TV appearances (1960), which Bob Dylan says enticed the then 19-year-old Minnesotan to move to New York City and begin his extraordinary career. "The Jazz Television of Robert Herridge" offers Nat Hentoff's video-rich celebration of one of the great musical collaborations of the 20th century.

23 Sep 1986

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.

01 Nov 1974

Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra return to Earth after several years in space. Ra proclaims himself "the alter-destiny", meets with inner-city youths and battles with the devil himself to save the black race.

21 Sep 2007

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

08 Mar 2005

Acclaimed jazz vocalist Jane Monheit -- an artist whose voice is often compared to that of Diana Krall and Ella Fitzgerald -- delivers a heartfelt set in this memorable 2004 performance filmed live at the Brecon International Jazz Festival in Wales. The evening's mix of standards includes "In the Still of the Night," "Embraceable You," "Bill," "Too Late Now," "Honeysuckle Rose" and "I Should Care."

16 Jun 1980

Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.

01 Jan 1957

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.

01 Dec 2023

"Bad Woman Blues - Beth Hart" celebrates the music and voice of a woman who enriches rock and blues with emotion, authenticity, and honesty.

29 Oct 2004

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.

26 Nov 2022

Stories and music of Black artists who relied on an underground travel guide to navigate the injustices of racial segregation while on the road. The Negro Travelers’ Green Book was a directory of lodgings, restaurants, and entertainment venues where African Americans were welcomed. Features performances and interviews with vocalists, musicians, activists, historians, and others.

03 Dec 1999

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.