
01 Jan 1953

Daybreak Express
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.
The Harlem Blues & Jazz Band during its sunset years: 87-year-old Al Casey, who had worked closely with Fats Waller throughout the 1930s; guitarist Lawrence Lucie, 95 years young, from the bands of Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington; saxophonist Bubba Brooks, 79, who was with Bill Doggett; Edwin Swanston, 80, pianist with Louis Armstrong's Orchestra; 91-year-old drummer Johnny Blowers, ex-Bunny Berigan, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra; Ivan Rolle, 85, bassist with Jonah Jones; and 88-year-old Laurel Watson, one-time vocalist with Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Baron's cameras record the musicians through their tours and concerts, capturing their joy in performing together. A celebration of the jazz spirit.
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01 Jan 1953

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.

21 Sep 2019

No overview found
01 Jan 1961
Documentary short showcasing the genius of jazz greats Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Cozy Cole, and Milt Hinton, among others.

01 Feb 1989

This profile of storied trumpeter of jazz, Tiny Davis, and her cohort pianist-drummer, Ruby Lucas, is an amalgam of artifacts about the two women, accompanied with poetry by Cheryl Clarke.

15 Feb 2019

A son seeking to fulfill his late father’s dream takes his band from the storied city of New Orleans to the shores of Cuba, where — through the universal language of music — dark and ancient connections between their peoples reveal the roots of jazz.

26 Aug 2017

Documentary film on events that happened on August 28th in African-American history, shown at the Smithsonian African-American History Museum.

29 Apr 1968

While flying to the first stop on their latest tour, the four members of the Australian music group The Seekers recall in flashback the origins of the group and their rise to success.

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.

10 Feb 2003

When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. Over 70 years later, the memories of some 2,000 slave-era survivors were transcribed and preserved by the Library of Congress. These first-person anecdotes, ranging from the brutal to the bittersweet, have been brought to vivid life in this unique HBO documentary special, featuring the on-camera voices of over a dozen top African-American actors.

07 Jul 2016

Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.

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."

31 Dec 1937

Color footage of inventor George Washington Carver at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Dr. Carver is filmed at his apartment, office, laboratory, and garden.

05 Apr 2019

This film by director Ramon Tort documents a unique moment in the life and career of Andrea Motis: the months preceding the recording of her first album in New York as well as what followed. A time filled with changes and emotions; from leaving her parents’ home for the first time and start living by herself to embarking in a world tour that would take her to places like Japan, United States, Asia and Europe. A crucial time in a young woman's life, who is about to make the big leap…, but is she interested in success or fame? Andrea is not a conventional artist. She lives in the moment, enjoying the small things in life, every day in the most simplest way possible… An entire magical process that can only be understood through her music.

09 Jan 2022

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.

13 Mar 1991

Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
31 May 1982
Traces the life of Booker T. Washington, ex-slave, author, educator, and political leader, focusing on his stewardship of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Uses historic photographs, re-created vignettes, and interviews with contemporaries such as W.E.B. DuBois to present Washington's complex personality and his influence on southern life after the Civil War. Also examines his controversial policies of Black economic self-reliance and political accommodation

01 Jan 2005

Cecil Taylor was the grand master of free jazz piano. "All the Notes" captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.

27 Feb 2019

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

01 Jan 1963

Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings.

23 Nov 2004

track list: 1.Sometimes I Just Freak Out 2.All Or Nothing At All 3.Stop This World 4.The Girl In The Other Room 5.Abandoned Masquerade 6.I'm Coming Through 7.Temptation 8.East Of The Sun (And West Of The Moon) 9.Devil May Care 10.Black Crow 11.Narrow Daylight 12.Love Me Like A Man 13.Departure Bay 14.Narrow Daylight