Jazzimation (1999)

Whispering Sidewalks

Inada plays Betty Yoshida, a singer and dancer from America who arrives in Japan to go on tour, only to be swindled by scheming managers. Penniless and cast to the streets, Betty is taken in by Oki (Nakagawa), a talented tap dancer who introduces her to a group of struggling musicians living and working together.

American Pop

The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.

Paris Blues

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.

Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz

"It must schwing!" was the motto of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, two German Jewish immigrants who in 1939 set up Blue Note Records, the jazz label that was home to such greats as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. Blue Note, the most successful movie ever made about jazz, is a testimony to the passion and vision of these two men and certainly swings like the propulsive sounds that made their label so famous.

Miceniks

Beatnik mice are chased by a square cat.

Kids on the Slope

Two different students—a successful but aloof academic and a rebellious but kindhearted delinquent—form a friendship through their love of jazz music.

Starstruck: Gene Kelly's Love Letter to Ballet

In 1960, American dancer and actor Gene Kelly created for the Paris Opera Ballet an original choreography that was highly acclaimed at the time, yet rarely performed thereafter; a genius work that the Scottish Ballet, accompanied by the stirring and evocative score by composer and pianist George Gershwin, epitome of orchestral jazz, brings back to life sixty years later.

Blue Giant

High school student Dai Miyamoto has his life is turned upside down the day he discovers jazz. Picking up a saxophone and leaving his sleepy hometown for the bustling nightclubs of Tokyo, Dai will find that the life of a professional musician isn’t for the faint of heart, as he must confront what it truly means to be great.

Young Man with a Horn

Taken in by the musical world as a young orphan, Rick Martin grows up with a desire to play pure jazz instead of the commercial gigs he lands, whilst also coping with the problems caused by his tempestuous marriage to an aloof heiress.

Swing Girls

A tale of delinquent and lazy school girls. In their efforts to cut remedial summer math class, they end up poisoning and replacing the school's brass band.

Sweet and Lowdown

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

Filthy Betrayal

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

Norman Granz’ Jazz in Montreaux presents Ella and Basie '79—"The Perfect Match"

The two musical masters swing out.

Melody Gardot: From Paris with Love

Melody Gardot performs her new album Sunset in the Blue, from the Radio France studios accompanied by a trio of musicians and 40 instrumentalists from the in-house orchestra.

Bird

Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.

Drums West

This newly rediscovered short was created in Jim's home studio in Bethesda, MD around 1961. It is one of several experimental shorts inspired by the music of jazz great Chico Hamilton. At the end, in footage probably shot by Jerry Juhl, Jim demonstrates his working method.

Shearing Animation

An abstract animated film inspired by the work of jazz musician Chico Hamilton.

Blues in the Night

A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.

Sita Sings the Blues

Utilizing the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, the epic Indian tale of exiled prince Ramayana and his bride Sita is mirrored by a spurned woman's contemporary personal life, and light-hearted but knowledgeable discussion of historical background by a trio of Indian shadow puppets.

Space Is the Place

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.

The Glenn Miller Story

A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.

Chris Botti in Boston

Chart-topping jazz trumpeter Chris Botti and special guests performed two star-studded concerts at the historic Boston Symphony Hall with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops on September 18 and 19, 2008. Special guests include Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Me, John Mayer, Katharine McPhee, Lucia Micarelli, Sting and Steven Tyler.

Bird: Not Out Of Nowhere

Kansas City PBS is proud to present a documentary that looks back at the years Charlie “Bird” Parker spent in Kansas City and his lasting legacy on the Kansas City jazz scene. Bird: Not Out of Nowhere features rarely seen archival footage of Parker, interviews with musicians and historians, and live performances from Kansas City’s most talented jazz musicians.

Head

In this surrealistic and free-form follow-up to the Monkees' television show, the band frolic their way through a series of musical set pieces and vignettes containing humor and anti-establishment social commentary.

Don't Fall in Love with Yourself

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

Crazy

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.

Candle

Confined to an endlessly burning waiting room, a dying sedentary woman experiences herself blurring in and out of her body. In her last remaining fragments she tries to make amends with her spirit before her remaining fragments either decay or create.

Mamori

Mamori transports us into a black-and-white universe of fluid shapes, dappled and striated with shadows and light, where the texture of the visuals and of the celluloid itself have been transformed through the filmmaker’s artistry. The raw material of images and sounds was captured in the Amazon rainforest by filmmaker Karl Lemieux and avant-garde composer Francisco López, a specialist in field recordings. Re-filming the photographs on 16 mm stock, then developing the film stock itself and digitally editing the whole, Lemieux transmutes the raw images and accompanying sounds into an intense sensory experience at the outer limits of representation and abstraction. Fragmented musical phrases filter through the soundtrack, evoking in our imagination the clamour of the tropical rainforest in this remote Amazonian location called Mamori.

New York, New York

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

Ezra Collective Ground Control

Ezra Collective has already shaken up the British jazz scene- Now the quintet has arrived on the continent, taking Paris' Ground Control by storm with the exuberance of their second album Where I'm Meant To Be.

Michael Bublé at the BBC

Claudia Winkleman meets Michael Buble in this entertainment spectacular. Michael performs classic tracks including Cry Me a River and Feeling Good alongside songs from his brand new album, including Nobody but Me. Michael also goes undercover as a sales assistant at a London department store to surprise a few unsuspecting fans.

The Blues Brothers

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.

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.

Trollkarlen

In this sober and moody documentary, director Anders Østergaard explores the life - and death - of Swedish wonder kid jazz pianist Jan Johansson through a rain-soaked windshield.

Too Late Blues

Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his masculinity is thrown into question following a violent brawl.

Satchmo: The Life of Louis Armstrong

Satchmo. There are few people in this country - or around the world - who will not recognize that name. Louis Armstrong embodied 20th-century American culture. He revolutionized the world of music and became one of the nation's most influential entertainers. No other performer of his era has such a profound effect as a singer as well as an instrumentalist.

MOANIN'

A jazz musician struggles to come to terms with his age when he is assigned a live in nurse.

Keith Jarrett: Standards II

Keith Jarrett with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette live in Tokyo. 1. You Don't Know What Love Is 2. With A Song In My Heart 3. When You Wish Upon a Star 4. All Of You 5. Blame It On My Youth 6. Love Letter 7. Georgia On My Mind 8. You And The Night And The Music 9. When I Fall In Love 10. On Green Dolphin Street 11. Woody 'n' You 12. Young And Foolish.

Traveler

A raccoon on a voxel boat talks about his job.