Joe Albany: A Jazz Life (1980)

(0) based on 0 votes
The life and times of Joe Albany, a little-known jazz pianist, is the subject of this specialized documentary that not only brings out the pianist himself, but the mood and feeling of the era in which he reached the top. Albany talks about the great musicians and singers he worked with - Billie Holliday and Charlie Parker among them - and how so many succumbed to drugs and died young. He is followed around at home, work, on the bus, and in other settings as he is interviewed by director Carole Langer. His sharp observations and dry sense of humor enliven the stories.
Directors
Release Date
Oct 01, 1980
Runtime
00h 57m
Actors
Genre
Available in streaming on

The life and times of Joe Albany, a little-known jazz pianist, is the subject of this specialized documentary that not only brings out the pianist himself, but the mood and feeling of the era in which he reached the top. Albany talks about the great musicians and singers he worked with - Billie Holliday and Charlie Parker among them - and how so many succumbed to drugs and died young. He is followed around at home, work, on the bus, and in other settings as he is interviewed by director Carole Langer. His sharp observations and dry sense of humor enliven the stories.

Movies like Joe Albany: A Jazz Life

The Story of the Weeping Camel

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Search similar movies
7.1
The+Story+of+the+Weeping+Camel
The Story of the Weeping Camel

2004

Search similar movies
Blindsight

Six blind Tibetan teenagers climb the Lhakpa-Ri peak of Mount Everest, led by seven-summit blind mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer.
Search similar movies
6.8
Blindsight
Blindsight

2006

Search similar movies
The Yes Men

A comic, biting and revelatory documentary following a small group of prankster activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization (WTO) on television and at business conferences around the world.
Search similar movies
6.9
The+Yes+Men
The Yes Men

2003

Search similar movies
The Provider

Abortion clinics in Texas are disappearing exponentially and healthcare providers are feeling the brunt. The Provider follows the story of abortion provider Dr. Shannon Carr who travels every week from New Mexico to Dallas in order to perform abortions despite restrictive laws and threats to her safety. Continue to share her story and follow our latest documentary series as we try to capture these stories and influence change before all abortion clinics in the US cease to exist
Search similar movies
5.0
The+Provider
The Provider

2015

Search similar movies
Milk

Through an intimate and artistic lens, yet investigative and political, Milk brings a universal focus on the politics, commercialization and controversies surrounding birth and infant feeding over the canvas of stunningly beautiful visuals and poignant voices from around the globe.
Search similar movies
7.5
Milk
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum

The film tells the story of the intimate and unprecedented encounter between the photojournalists of the Magnum Agency and the world of cinema. The confrontation of two seemingly opposite worlds – fiction and reality. For 70 years their paths crossed: a family of photographers, amongst them the biggest names in photography, and a family of actors and filmmakers who helped write the history of cinema, from John Huston to Marilyn Monroe to Orson Welles, Kate Winslet and Sean Penn.
Search similar movies
7.7
Cinema+Through+the+Eye+of+Magnum
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum

2017

Search similar movies
Deliver Us from Evil

Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.
Search similar movies
7.1
Deliver+Us+from+Evil
Deliver Us from Evil

2006

Search similar movies
Air Guitar Nation

If your bedroom has become too small a stage for your air guitar antics, take inspiration from the competitors featured here as they battle their way from the inaugural U.S. Air Guitar Championship to the world championship in Oulu, Finland. Along the way, filmmaker Alexandra Lipsitz documents the fierce rivalries that develop as would-be rock legends vie for top honors in technical accuracy, stage presence and "airness."
Search similar movies
6.3
Air+Guitar+Nation
Air Guitar Nation

2006

Search similar movies
T

A film crew follows three grieving participants of Miami’s annual T Ball, where folks assemble to model R.I.P. t-shirts and innovative costumes designed in honor of their dead.
Search similar movies
6.7
T
American Teen

A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques.
Search similar movies
6.3
American+Teen
American Teen

2008

Search similar movies
In My Mother's House

One day in 2005, Lina Fruzzetti receives a startling email that reads, "If this is your father, we are cousins." There follows a decade-long quest to learn more about her Italian father who died young in Italian ruled Eritrea and her Eritrean mother who does not dwell on the past. Above all, Fruzzetti strives to understand her far-flung African, European, and American family against the backdrop of colonial rule, worlds at war, migration, grief, diasporas, and the global world in which we all live.
Search similar movies
In+My+Mother%27s+House
In My Mother's House

2017

Search similar movies
Time

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
Search similar movies
6.8
Time
Underwater Dreams

Underwater Dreams, narrated by Michael Peña, is an epic story of how the sons of undocumented Mexican immigrants learned how to build underwater robots. And go up against MIT in the process.
Search similar movies
6.7
Underwater+Dreams
Underwater Dreams

2014

Search similar movies
Pure Love: The Voice of Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald's voice is a phenomenon and unrivalled to this day. She had the perfect pitch and perfect intonation. Ella's voice spanned three octaves, her phrasing seemed effortless. There is almost no style of music, in which she did not excel, and her numerous - now legendary - recordings of the 'Great American Songbook' with pieces of US composers such as George and Ira Gershwin, Harald Arlen, Cole Porter or Duke Ellington, remained a benchmark for the "right" interpretation of those songs for generations of singers. In the film the focus will be on the voice of Ella Fitzgerald. We want to unravel the secret of her voice through many different people (musicians, singers, critics etc.), who will tell about what impact her voice had on them and still has. We want to learn more about Ella´s life to find out what made her sing like she did and only she could.
Search similar movies
8.0
Pure+Love%3A+The+Voice+of+Ella+Fitzgerald
Pure Love: The Voice of Ella Fitzgerald

2017

Search similar movies
Nina: A Historical Perspective

This Emmy-nominated TV special highlights rare performance footage filmed between 1968 and 1969 at various US venues and locations, including the Westbury Music Fair, The Village Gate, and RCA Studios in New York City. Also featured are candid and personal interviews with Nina herself, revealing her unique views on music and life -- all expressed with her trademark intensity.
Search similar movies
Nina%3A+A+Historical+Perspective
Nina: A Historical Perspective

1970

Search similar movies
Germany in Autumn

The film does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two-month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped and later murdered by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the original leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
Search similar movies
6.2
Germany+in+Autumn
Germany in Autumn

1978

Search similar movies
Dear Thirteen

A nuanced portrait of a new generation, Dear Thirteen is a cinematic time capsule of coming of age in today’s world. Through the eyes of nine thirteen-year-olds, we see how pressing social, geographical and political challenges are shaping, and being shaped by, young people: rising anti-Semitism in Europe, guns in America, gender identity and racial divisions across Australia and Asia. With no adult commentary outside the filmmaker, Dear Thirteen offers an intimate view into the universal uncertainty inherent in growing up.
Search similar movies
Dear+Thirteen
Dear Thirteen

2022

Search similar movies
Wilt Chamberlain: Borscht Belt Bellhop

In 1954, before his senior year of high school, Wilt Chamberlain took a summer job that would change his life, working as a bellhop at Kutsher's Country Club, a Jewish resort in the Catskill Mountains. An unexplored and pivotal chapter in the life of one of basketball's greatest players, and a fascinating glimpse of a time when a very different era of basketball met the Borscht Belt in its heyday.
Search similar movies
Wilt+Chamberlain%3A+Borscht+Belt+Bellhop
Wilt Chamberlain: Borscht Belt Bellhop

2013

Search similar movies
Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
Search similar movies
6.8
Olympia+Part+One%3A+Festival+of+the+Nations
Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

1938

Search similar movies
Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.
Search similar movies
6.7
Olympia+Part+Two%3A+Festival+of+Beauty
Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

1938

Search similar movies
Bukovyna, Ukrainian Land

Dovzhenko and Solntseva's documentary about the Bukovina region.
Search similar movies
3.1
Bukovyna%2C+Ukrainian+Land
Bukovyna, Ukrainian Land

1939

Search similar movies
Be Pretty and Shut Up!

The film is a series of interviews with various well-known film actresses, including Jenny Agutter, Maria Schneider, and Jane Fonda. The title, which is borrowed from a 1958 film with the same name by Marc Allegret, refers to the sense the actresses have of what is expected of them by the film industry.
Search similar movies
6.1
Be+Pretty+and+Shut+Up%21
Be Pretty and Shut Up!

1981

Search similar movies
Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

This documentary provides a window into the extraordinary life of activist and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who has worked to regain ownership of her country and its fate after years of colonialism. While gentle and thoughtful, Maathai carries a powerful message: the First World holds much of the responsibility for the environmental, economic and social struggles of the developing world.
Search similar movies
6.2
Taking+Root%3A+The+Vision+of+Wangari+Maathai
Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

2008

Search similar movies
God's Girls

God's Girls describes life in a Sisters of Mercy convent in country New South Wales from the 1940's to present day. This courageous and clever film investigates the subtle complexities of change within a society that has been surrounded by mystery for hundreds of years. The stories from the women in the film reflect the often intricate paths of social, political and religious history, not only in Australia but also in the rest of the world.
Search similar movies
God%27s+Girls
God's Girls

1992

Search similar movies
Paris at Dawn

Johan van der Keuken's first film is a uniquely beautiful portrait of Paris at dawn.
Search similar movies
6.8
Paris+at+Dawn
Paris at Dawn

1957

Search similar movies
Older, Stronger, Wiser

In this short documentary, five black women talk about their lives in rural and urban Canada between the 1920s and 1950s. What emerges is a unique history of Canada’s black people and the legacy of their community elders. Produced by the NFB’s iconic Studio D.
Search similar movies
Older%2C+Stronger%2C+Wiser
Older, Stronger, Wiser

1989

Search similar movies
Miracle on 42nd Street

The story of Manhattan Plaza, the renowned experiment in subsidized housing catering to people in the arts. Numerous celebrities pay homage to the impact the building had on their lives and careers.
Search similar movies
Miracle+on+42nd+Street
Miracle on 42nd Street

2017

Search similar movies
Paris Is Burning

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.
Search similar movies
8.0
Paris+Is+Burning
Paris Is Burning

1991

Search similar movies
The Guys Next Door

An intimate portrait of a real Modern Family: Meet Erik and Sandro, a gay couple with daughters birthed by their friend Rachel who's married with three teenagers of her own.
Search similar movies
2.3
The+Guys+Next+Door
The Guys Next Door

2016

Search similar movies
The Devil Came on Horseback

While serving with the African Union, former Marine Capt. Brian Steidle documents the brutal ethnic cleansing occuring in Darfur. Determined that the Western public should know about the atrocities he is witnessing, Steidle contacts New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof, who publishes some of Steidle's photographic evidence.
Search similar movies
7.2
The+Devil+Came+on+Horseback
The Devil Came on Horseback

2007

Search similar movies
Monk with a Camera

Nicholas Vreeland walked away from a worldly life of privilege to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Grandson of legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland and apprentice of photographer Irving Penn, Nicholas' life changed drastically upon meeting one of the Dalai Lama's teachers. Soon thereafter, he gave up his glamorous life to live in a monastery in India, ultimately returning to his roots in photography to help his fellow monks rebuild their monastery.
Search similar movies
7.2
Monk+with+a+Camera
Monk with a Camera

2014

Search similar movies
Out in the Night

Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a 'Gang of Killer Lesbians'.
Search similar movies
4.5
Out+in+the+Night
Out in the Night

2014

Search similar movies
Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All

An intimate look into the lives of one of the most iconic folk-rock bands in America - the Indigo Girls. With never-before-seen archival and intimate vérité the film dives into the songwriting and storytelling of the music that transformed a generation.
Search similar movies
8.4
Indigo+Girls%3A+It%27s+Only+Life+After+All
Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All

2024

Search similar movies
The Wrong Light

A charismatic activist leads a globally-regarded NGO that provides shelter and education for girls rescued from brothels in Northern Thailand. But as the filmmakers meet the girls and their families, discrepancies begin to emerge and the story takes an unexpected turn.
Search similar movies
The+Wrong+Light
The Wrong Light

2017

Search similar movies
I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me

This insightful Home Box Office documentary profiles some American children afflicted with Tourette's syndrome -- a hereditary neurological disorder manifested by recurrent, involuntary vocal and motor tics. More than a dozen youngsters ranging from ages 6 to 13 discuss the stigma of Tourette's, what it's like to grow up with the condition, control measures and the challenges they face to be viewed as normal.
Search similar movies
7.2
I+Have+Tourette%27s+But+Tourette%27s+Doesn%27t+Have+Me
I Have Tourette's But Tourette's Doesn't Have Me

2005

Search similar movies