John Coltrane
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.
The film explores the global power and impact of the music of John Coltrane and reveals the passions, experiences and forces that shaped his life and revolutionary sounds.
Kind Of Blue: Celebrating A Masterpiece incorporates material from the 2004 mini-documentary, Made In Heaven, including black-and-white still photography of the recording sessions and the voices of Miles (at the sessions), as well as excerpts of radio interviews with the late Bill Evans.
John Coltrane provides an epic 95-minute overview of a true giant of 20th-century music. Three separate shows reveal Coltrane's ascending creative arc from hard bop innovator as a member of the Miles Davis Quartet in 1960 to consummate bandleader in 1961 to unrivaled jazz visionary in 1965. This DVD not only features Trane's classic quartet with Elvin Jones (drums), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and McCoy Tyner (piano), but also spotlights him onstage with other jazz legends including Stan Getz, Eric Dolphy and Oscar Peterson. Includes mind-blowing versions of his signature tunes "My Favorite Things" and "Impressions".
An exemplary television program performance (New York, 1959) with the legendary Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and enhanced by the Gil Evans Orchestra.
The World According to John Coltrane is a documentary film about saxophonist John Coltrane
Produced with the cooperation of his widow Alice Coltrane, the documentary focuses on the later period of Coltrane's work where he explored themes of Eastern spirituality. This is a retrospective documentary on the life and music of saxophonist John Coltrane, featuring reminiscences and interviews with his contemporaries and fellow musicians.
From neighborhood ciphers to the most notorious MC battles, "Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme" captures the electrifying energy of improvisational hip-hop--the rarely recorded art form of rhyming spontaneously. Like preachers and jazz solos, freestyles exist only in the moment, a modern-day incarnation of the African-American storytelling tradition. Shot over a period of more than seven years, it is already an underground cult film in the hip-hop world. The film systematically debunks the false image put out by record companies that hip-hop culture is violent or money-obsessed. Instead, it lets real hip-hop artists, known and unknown, weave their story out of a passionate mix of language, politics, and spirituality.
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.
To music by John Coltrane, the film mixes quick shots of common objects or still lifes and the fragments of a filmed diary showing some friends on vacation in Torcello, in the Venetian lagoon, walking around reading the newspaper, chatting during lunch, cutting vegetables, playing chess. The shots, taken without a tripod, have a decidedly impressive visual intensity: backlit silhouettes, bright portraits, fruit and shells reminiscent of still lifes. In a convulsive and irrepressible way, with the flow of visual assonances, The little boredom intertwines the pictorial formalism of the compositions with the scenes of everyday life.
The bold and ferocious harmonic imagination of John Coltrane is laid bare in this concert, captured at the Comblain-La-Tour Festival in Belgium, 1965. Alongside his famed quartet, he delivers a transcendent performance that is marked by the total physicality of the music – four sets of hands moving with restless vigour as vapour literally rises from their shoulders and into the night sky.
A young journalist is unhappy with society and contemplates what he can do about it.
Features Coltrane live at the Antibes Jazz Festival July 26 & 27 1965. Included is a 12-page booklet with an essay written by an authoritative jazz historian as well as rare and unseen photos. This DVD is produced with the full support and cooperation of the artists or his estate, who, in most cases, are contributing rare personal photographs, memorabilia, and forwards.
Great video of Miles playing with sextet and Evans orchestra. A TV program hosted by Robert Herridge, The Robert Herridge Theater from Studio 61, and recorded in New York in 1959. With the legendary Miles Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and enhanced by the Gil Evans Orchestra.
Although some of the production elements may seem a bit dated to modern viewers, The Coltrane Legacy [DVD] (2001) -- which is a remastered edition of the mid-'80s home video program -- remains a discerning compendium of Coltrane in action from three distinct eras of his career.
