Jazz Is My Native Language: A Portrait of Toshiko Akiyoshi

The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.

Count Basie does a little rhyming rapping before going into this Benny Goodman instrumental composition. While he's playing, plenty of couples are jitterbugging constantly until, one by one, they get tired and start to fall down on the floor.

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers at their best along with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra performing for this "Hot Chocolate" musical short.

Kirk Whalum presents this music documentary-cum-live concert performance exploring the impact of jazz on modern retellings of the Gospel. The film includes performances by Kirk Whalum himself along with George Duke, Lalah Hathaway, Doc Powell and Kevin Whalum.

Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least one movie and at least one jail cell (for drug possession). And, we see the aged Baker, detached, indifferent, his face a ruin. Includes interviews with his children and ex-wife, women companions, and musicians.

Chet Baker silently wanders through an Antonioniesque landscape in a Felliniesque state of wonderment as his improvised trumpet solos alternate between earnestly offering the obvious and mocking the artiness of the whole affair.

Born in 1932, Keiko Kishi has been one of the first Japanese actresses known worldwide. Her decision to move to France and to marry director Yves Ciampi in 1957 – after he filmed her in Typhoon Over Nagasaki starring Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux – caused a huge scandal in Japan. Despite this transgression, Keiko Kishi continued acting in her home country with Kon Ichikawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Masaki Kobayashi… building unique bridges between Japanese and European cultures. Free and rebellious, she emancipated herself from the many obstacles she encountered in the film industry, and created her own production company in her early twenties. Let’s look back at the story of a pioneer, an inspiration for many generations.

It’s the second semester of junior year for Pierce “Sparni” Sparnroft, a gifted jazz vibraphonist studying at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Sparni’s prospects on the vibes were rejuvenated by their new professor, the world-renowned Steve Nelson, and are to be showcased during a student-driven recital in May 2023. But all the while, Sparni must face a crisis within.

The follow-up film to “Barstow, California” takes us to the mountains of Miyama, a remote forest and tourist area north of Kyoto. Uwe Walter, a shakuhachi player from Germany, lives there with his wife Mitsuyo for 30 years. Together with the villagers he prepares the annual Gion Festival. On the eve of the festival, the village representatives tell him that his self-built studio is to be demolished. This brings back memories for him of earlier times and his first steps as a Nō actor. In the manner of a fresco, the film interweaves rural depictions of everyday life with the story of its German protagonist. In the village community with its togetherness of generations, Uwe shares life with his neighbours, with farmers, hunters, woodsmen, poultry farmers and anglers, tills his kitchen garden, and like other tradition-conscious villagers, he also grows his rice. The film shows them in a harsh mountain landscape between the rainy season and the first snow.

When two buskers find themselves situated on the same busy street corner, a musical battle ensues when the musicians realise that the lively city isn't big enough for the both of them

Historic performance by the Dudley Moore Trio filmed in Australia in 1971. Tracklist 1 La Nuit S'Epanouit 2 The More I See You 3 Chimes 4 Love Song For An Imaginary Musical 5 The Look Of Love 6 Madrigal 7 Moon River 8 The Swan 9 Bedazzled 10 Song For Suzy 11 Die Flabbergast 12 Yesterdays 13 Fanfare 14 Strictly For The Birds 15 Goodbyeee

Passing the Torch documents a ninety year old Jazz master, Jimmy Heath, mentoring teenage musicians with a thirst for knowledge and an appreciation of America's homegrown art form, Jazz. Director Bret Primack captures Heath's gentle, humorous sharing of life lessons and the non-threatening way he guides aspiring artists to musical excellence. An esteemed mentor, Mr. Heath reaches a much younger generation by understanding his role, to be dependable, engaged, authentic, and finely tuned to their needs.

Director — and piano player — Clint Eastwood explores his life-long passion for piano blues, using a treasure trove of rare historical footage in addition to interviews and performances by such living legends as Pinetop Perkins and Jay McShann, as well as Dave Brubeck and Marcia Ball.

Although the free jazz movement of the 1960s and '70s was much maligned in some jazz circles, its pioneers - brilliant talents like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane - are today acknowledged as central to the evolution of jazz as America's most innovative art form. FIRE MUSIC showcases the architects of a movement whose radical brand of improvisation pushed harmonic and rhythmic boundaries, and produced landmark albums like Coleman's Free Jazz: A Collective Inspiration and Coltrane's Ascension. A rich trove of archival footage conjures the 1960s jazz scene along with incisive reflections by critic Gary Giddins and a number of the movement's key players.

Duke Ellington and Orchestra perform 'C Jam Blues'.

Sound is a journey. Each note opens a door, closes another. Instruments chart the course. Through a poetic and immersive lens, Sou Jazz shines a light on musicians from the Paraisópolis community, reaffirming the social and transformative power of art. The film invites viewers into a reflective, sensory exploration of the relationship between jazz and life on the margins.