NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE | Gifted jazz trumpeter Wallace Roney was anointed as Miles Davis’s protege by Davis himself. A recently rediscovered orchestral jazz suite by Wayne Shorter—written in 1966 for Davis but never performed—compels the talented Roney to convene an orchestra worthy of performing this complex work. Can they rise to Roney’s commitment to excellence? Directors […]
Through his pioneering band, Mothers of Invention, as well as his solo work, Frank Zappa embraced a variety of genres, from rock and jazz to experimental and classical music, ultimately producing more than 60 albums in a career spanning four decades. An outspoken critic of the status quo and staunch defender of free expression, he […]
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE | A chronicle of the life of saxophonist Ronnie Scott, from poor, Jewish kid growing up in 1940s East End, London to the owner of the legendary night club, Ronnie’s. Glorious clips from performances by jazz greats spanning decades—Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Van Morrison, Chet Baker, and […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE | When a young London-born Nigerian music fan makes the shocking discovery that many Nigerian musical icons don’t possess copies of their own recordings, he returns to Lagos to re-record them. This film chronicles the music—from juju to Afrobeat and everything in between—and its parallels to Nigeria’s socio-political evolution from the colonial 1950s […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE | Filmmaker Justin Staple offers an eye-opening exploration of the SoundCloud rap phenomenon, a scene of troubled, young, lo-fi rappers that has emerged within the last few years. Exploiting the possibilities of social media to engage with a rabid fan base, a new breed of stars like Lil Peep, Smokepurpp, and Bhad Bhabie have […]
NYC PREMIERE. Jim Marshall, the only photographer to receive the Grammy® Trustee Award, led a life of intensity. With a career spanning six decades, and a professional philosophy based on intimacy with his subjects, Marshall was the music industry’s preeminent rock photographer. His own wild life gave him a unique perspective, allowing Marshall to capture the […]
NYC PREMIERE Jim Marshall, the only photographer to receive the Grammy® Trustee Award, led a life of intensity. With a career spanning six decades, and a professional philosophy based on intimacy with his subjects, Marshall was the music industry’s preeminent rock photographer. His own wild life gave him a unique perspective, allowing Marshall to capture the […]
US PREMIERE Artist Jaśmina Wójcik collaborates with a group of former workers from the now-defunct Ursus tractor factory in Poland to compose an astonishing symphony of sounds and movements based on their physical experience while building tractors. As they perform the movements and sounds interiorized during decades of labor, we learn about their personal histories in […]
NYC PREMIERE. The subjects of Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s new film were all born into music royalty. But when the offspring of James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bill Withers, Stephen Stills and the Marleys set out to become singer-songwriters themselves, they walk a fine line between trying to live up to the success of their legendary […]
NYC PREMIERE Cheekily declaring itself “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine,” CREEM launched in 1969 Detroit as an irreverent upstart to rival the pre-eminent rock publication of the day, Rolling Stone. Scrappy, subversive and gleefully puerile, the magazine soon became wildly popular, thanks in large part to its forward-thinking publisher, Barry Kramer, and its gonzo journalist, […]