Chet Baker Live at Ronnie Scott's (1986)

Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band

Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams was a genius ahead of her time. From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, she never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But for a Black woman in the early 1900s, life as a star did not come easy.

The Strip

Drummer Stanley Maxton moves to Los Angeles with dreams of opening his own jazz club, but falls in with a gangster and a nightclub dancer and ends up accused of her murder.

Ornette: Made in America

Shirley Clarke's frenetic documentary about multi-talented musician Ornette Coleman.

Birth of the Blues

Jeff grows up near Basin Street in New Orleans, playing his clarinet with the dock workers. He puts together a band, the Basin Street Hot-Shots, which includes a cornet player, Memphis. They struggle to get their jazz music accepted by the cafe society of the city. Betty Lou joins their band as a singer and gets Louie to show her how to do scat singing. Memphis and Jeff both fall in love with Betty Lou.

Syncopation

A young trumpeter rises through the jazz world and finds love.

1959: The Year that Changed Jazz

Archive performances and interviews explore the influence of the four major jazz albums made in 1959 by Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman.

Rooty Toot Toot

Frankie walks into a bar, where she catches her boyfriend Johnny with the sensuous Nellie Bly and kills him in a fit of jealousy.

Born to Be Blue

Jazz legend Chet Baker finds love and redemption when he stars in a movie about his own troubled life to mount a comeback.

Nat King Cole: Afraid of the Dark

Take an in-depth look at the life and talent of the trailblazing musician who conquered racial barriers to leave an indelible mark on the jazz world.

Spinning Gold

A biopic of 1970s record producer Neil Bogart, co-founder of Casablanca Records.

The Jazz Ambassadors

The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?

Three Little Bops

Three hip, Little Pigs are travelling entertainers, moving from straw to wood, to brick nightclubs, playing swinging tunes for high-class, "with it" crowds, but an uncool Big Bad Wolf keeps intruding on their act with with his "corny horn" and uses it to blow their nightclubs down when they throw him out- until they are playing in their brick club and the Wolf tries a more drastic, explosive method for destroying the "House of Bricks".

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes

Explore the vision behind the iconic American jazz record label. Since 1939, Blue Note artists have been encouraged to push creative boundaries in search of uncompromising expressions. Through current recording sessions, rare archive and conversations with iconic Blue Note artists, the film reveals an intimate perspective of a legacy that continues to be vital in today’s political climate.

New Orleans

A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.

Classic Albums: Frank Zappa - Apostrophe (') Over-Nite Sensation

This episode focuses on Zappa's early 70s albums, Overnight Sensation (1973) and Apostrophy (') (1974). Together they encapsulate Zappa's extraordinary musical diversity and were also the 2 most commercially successful albums that he released in his prolific career. Included are interviews, musical demonstrations, rare archive & home movie footage, plus live performances to tell the story behind the conception and recording of these groundbreaking albums. Extras include additional interviews and demonstrations not included in the broadcast version, 2 full performances from the Roxy in 1973 and Saturday Night Live in 1976, and new full live performance done specially for these Classic Albums.

Collective Soul - Home

Multi-platinum recording artists release their first-ever live DVD. Recorded in April 2005, the shows were filmed in the band's hometown of Atlanta during two special sold-out performances featuring the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. The 20-song collection spans ninety minutes and encompasses hits from Collective Soul's seven studio albums, including their latest release, "Youth".

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America's history lost — until now.

Loyle Carner - hugo: reimagined (live from the Royal Albert Hall)

in celebration of the release of his critically lauded, mercury prize nominated album “hugo”, revered wordsmith loyle carner reinterpreted the record for a very special live performance at the esteemed royal albert hall in october 2023

Ray

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.

The Case of the Three Sided Dream

The documentary film on the life and legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk – a one of a kind musician, personality, activist and windmill slayer who despite being blind, becoming paralyzed, and facing America’s racial injustices - did not relent.

Liberty's Secret

The daughter of a preacher becomes the centerpiece for a conservative political campaign but finds herself falling in love with a woman.

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.

You, the Living

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.

Lady Sings the Blues

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.

Tears For Fears - Going To California

Going To California is a concert performance video by the British pop group Tears For Fears. Released in 1990, it is a recording of the band's show at the Santa Barbara County Bowl in May 1990 during their "Seeds Of Love" World Tour.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser

A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.

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.

Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast

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.

All Night Long

Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex and Delia Lane, a jealous, ambitious drummer, Johnny Cousin, attempts to tear the interracial couple apart.

A World Without Beethoven?

"What would the world be like without Beethoven?" That’s the provocative question posed by this music documentary from Deutsche Welle. To answer it, the film explores how Ludwig van Beethoven's innovations continue to have an impact far beyond the boundaries of classical music, 250 years after his birth.

Ella Fitzgerald Live in Australia

Ella Fitzgerald visited Australia back in 1960. Gracefully stepping up to the microphone for the celebrated television event 'The BP Super Show', hosted by musician and entertainer Horrie Dargie, Fitzgerald delivered a mellifluous set of legendary songs in an intimate concert setting at The Embers Nightclub in Toorak Road, South Yarra Victoria. This rarely seen B&W television treat is considered to be one of the earliest audio-visual recordings of the 'First Lady of Song', backed by the smooth sounds of the Lou Levy Quartet. Beside Fitzgerald's performance of 14 memorable Jazz and Blues classics, the program also contains original BP musical interludes and jingles from the Horrie Dargie Quartet.

Stormy Weather

The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.

Glenn Fredly: The Movie

Starting from the determination and great desire to create a music concert to embrace peace in Ambon City, Glenn ultimately gave up all his income to hold the concert.

Down Beat Bear

A dancing bear escapes from the zoo and finds his way to Tom and Jerry's house. He dances with Tom, making it impossible for Tom to call the authorities; Jerry takes every opportunity to play music and keep Tom and the bear dancing

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.

Wild Man Blues

Wild Man Blues is a 1998 documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple, about the musical avocation of actor/director/comic Woody Allen. The film takes its name from a jazz composition sometimes attributed to Jelly Roll Morton and sometimes to Louis Armstrong and recorded by both (among others). Allen's love of early 20th century New Orleans music is depicted through his 1996 tour of Europe with his New Orleans Jazz Band. Allen has played clarinet with this band for over 25 years. Although Allen's European tour is the film's primary focus, it was also notable as the first major public showcase for Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn.

Time Piece

Dislocation in time, time signatures, time as a philosophical concept, and slavery to time are some of the themes touched upon in this 9-minute experimental film, which was written, directed, and produced by Jim Henson. Screened for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in May of 1965, "Time Piece" enjoyed an eighteen-month run at one Manhattan movie theater and was nominated for an Academy Award for Outstanding Short Subject.

Love Me or Leave Me

A fictionalized account of the career of jazz singer Ruth Etting and her tempestuous marriage to gangster Marty Snyder, who helped propel her to stardom.

Eastwood Symphonic

Bassist and composer Kyle Eastwood reunites his quintet with the Orchestre National de Lyon to pay tribute to the career of his father, legendary actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood, in a concert combining jazz, classical music and cinema, held at the auditorium of the Orchestre National de Lyon on October 19, 2022.

Let's Get Lost

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.

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.

Boléro

Boundary-pushing Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein selects renowned French composer Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro.

Laufey's A Night at the Symphony: Hollywood Bowl

Laufey takes the audience on a spell-binding sonic journey under the stars, performing alongside the legendary Los Angeles Philharmonic.

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.

Moondog Airwaves

On the stormy night of July 5th, 1995, Trick Stuart works the graveyard shift with his plus-sized pal Meathead at the Delta Kream, a 24HR fast food joint. As they practice their brass band routine, a very unexpected visitor arrives.

The Horn Blows at Midnight

A trumpet player in a radio orchestra falls asleep during a commercial and dreams he's Athanael, an angel deputized to blow the Last Trumpet at exactly midnight on Earth, thus marking the end of the world.

Jackass 3.5

Johnny Knoxville of 'Jackass' releases unused material of stunts, tricks, antics and shenanigans shot during the production of 'Jackass 3D' that didn't make it into the film, as well as the hilarious outtakes.

Dingo

Young John Anderson is captivated by jazz musician Billy Cross when he performs on the remote airstrip of his Western Australian outback hometown after his plane is diverted. Years later, now a family man and making a meagre living tracking dingoes and playing trumpet in a local band, John still dreams of joining Billy on trumpet and makes a pilgrimage to Paris.

Cold Trumpet

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.

Thunder Soul

Jamie Foxx presents the inspiring true story of high school band leader Conrad O. Johnson, who transformed his ragtag jazz band students into a legendary funk powerhouse that took the nation by storm.

Bolden

A mythical account of the life of Buddy Bolden, the first Cornet King of New Orleans.