Movies
June 2008 DVDs By Jeff Tamarkin
The Way of Beauty
East-West fusions are so common now that the idea of a British guitarist with a jazz-rock pedigree mixing it up with Indian classical musicians raises no eyebrows. But in 1975, when John McLaughlin debuted Shakti, the concept and the music itself were downright...
June 2008 DVDs By Jeff Tamarkin
Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe
Jan Garbarek, the Norwegian saxophonist, states the theme of Julian Benedikt’s instructive 90-minute documentary early in the program. “We’ll never be Charlie Parker,” he says, “but we have something else.” Throughout, European jazz artists express similar...
June 2008 DVDs By Christopher Loudon
A Tribute to Edith Piaf
Yes, Edith Piaf was as quintessentially French as Brie, Bardot and Henri Cartier-Bresson. But her influence and appeal knew no borders. So it is entirely appropriate that this tribute, captured live at Montreux in July 2004, calls upon an international assortment...
June 2008 DVDs By Bill Milkowski
A Musical Portrait
In Mark Kidel’s revealing documentary profile of the late, great Joe Zawinul, we come to understand the source of the composer-keyboardist’s mental and physical toughness, qualities that informed his outward swagger and fueled his supreme self-confidence...
May 2008 DVDs By Will Smith
Symphony in Riffs
Less a musical offering than a visual tribute to the long, achievement-filled career of alto saxophonist, trumpeter, bandleader and composer-arranger Benny Carter, Symphony in Riffs follows his ascent from fairly humble beginnings in New York City through...
May 2008 DVDs By Christopher Loudon
At the Côte d’Azur with Ella Fitzgerald and Joan Miró/The Last Jam Session
The rather dusty black-and-white footage, dating from the summer of 1966, opens with bikinis, beach umbrellas and Foster Grant-shaded sophisticates strolling La Croisette. The scene then shifts to a surprisingly drab hotel suite, where Duke Ellington explains...
May 2008 DVDs By Jeff Tamarkin
Congo Square
No one alive bore first-hand witness to the music played by African slaves in pre-Civil War New Orleans and, of course, no recordings exist. So the most Wynton Marsalis could have hoped to accomplish with his ambitious, two-hour, 14-movement Congo Square...
May 2008 DVDs By Bill Milkowski
Live
Cuban emigré Arturo Sandoval flexes his multi-instrumental muscle on this exhilarating concert DVD filmed in June 2007 at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. Switching nimbly from his signature high-note, circular-breathing trumpet work to keyboards to timbales...
May 2008 DVDs By Will Smith
Live at Jazz a Vienne
This July 2007 public TV broadcast DVD offers loads of strong, often joyous music along with fairly unimaginative visuals from Vienne, France, capturing the SFJAZZ Collective in a lineup slightly different from its recent two-CD concert tour recording. In...
April 2008 DVDs By Bill Milkowski
Speak a Volcano
Back in 1974, Al Di Meola was the boy wonder, a shy 19-year-old fretboard shredder who rapidly ascended to international fame with Return to Forever. Three decades later, Di Meola is a savvy, seasoned bandleader and authoritative six-stringer with a vast...
