WFCR Jazz Film Series

With WFCR Jazz à la mode host Tom Reney
Enjoy Jazz greats on the big screen with local host of WFCR's legendary Jazz à la mode Program, Tom Reney.  Enjoy 20 minutes of LIVE jazz before each performance, and stick around to discuss the history, the personalities and the music after each show.

THE SERIES: This spring, WFCR, in collaboration with the Amherst Cinema, presents the WFCR Jazz à la Mode Film Series. For Tom Reney, host of Jazz à la Mode on WFCR, jazz and cinema are a natural pairing. “Both emerged as the major new art forms of the 20th Century, and the very first motion picture with sound was the 1927 Al Jolson classic, The Jazz Singer,” says Reney.  “As it happened, The Jazz Singer was also the first of many films to appropriate the name but little of the actual substance of jazz, and over the years Hollywood has produced numerous jazz-themed movies that trade mostly in stereotypes and sensation.  But jazz has fared much better in the documentary realm.  Directors with a sympathetic view have often found the music, its players, and their stories compelling subject matter.”  The WFCR Jazz à la Mode Series includes a tightly curated selection of films that seeks to celebrate and illuminate the jazz life, and the musicians who made it theirs. Tom Reney will introduce the films, and lead a question and answer after each screening.

A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM w/ JAMMIN' THE BLUES
at Amherst Cinema
April 13 at 7:00

JAMMIN' THE BLUES
Selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, Jammin' the Blues is a 1944 short film in which several prominent jazz musicians got together for a rare filmed jam session. Featuring Lester Young, Red Callender, Harry Edison, Marlowe Morris, Sid Catlett, Barney Kessel, Jo Jones, John Simmons, Illinois Jacquet, Marie Bryant, Archie Savage and Garland Finney. Barney Kessel is the only white performer in the film. He was seated in the shadows to shade his skin, and for closeups, his hands were stained with berry juice.  Running time: 10 mins.  DVD Projection

A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM
This document brings to life a remarkable moment in the history of jazz - a moment in which dozens of America's jazz legends unexpectedly gathered together for a photograph that would become emblematic of the golden age of jazz. Interweaving archival performance footage, remarkable never-before-seen home-movie footage of the photograph being taken, and rare interviews with jazz masters present that day, including Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey.  Other interviewees include the photographer, Art Kane, who had never before taken a picture as a professional, but would quickly rise to the top of his field; Esquire graphics editor, Robert Benton, who used what he learned that day to become a three-time Academy Award winning filmmaker. Finally, we hear the stories of some of the neighborhood kids who snuck into the frame to be photographed alongside their musical heroes.  Running time: 60 mins.

ROUND MIDNIGHT
at Amherst Cinema
Tuesday May 11   7:00 only

In 'Round Midnight, real-life jazz legend Dexter Gordon brilliantly portrays the fictional tenor sax player Dale Turner, a musician slowly losing the battle with alcoholism, estranged from his family, and hanging on by a thread in the 1950's New York jazz world. Dale gets an offer to play in Paris, where, like many other black American musicians at the time, he enjoys a respect for his humanity that is not based upon the color of his skin. A Parisian man who is obsessed with Turner's music befriends him and attempts to save Turner from himself. Although for Dale the damage is already done, his poignant relationship with the man and his young daughter re-kindles his spirit and his music as the end draws near.  Director Bertrand Tavernier.  1986, 133 mins.

THE JAZZ BARONESS
at Amherst Cinema
Tuesday June 8   7:00pm only!

Contemporary filmmaker Hannah Rothschild tries to uncover the real story behind her great aunt's sudden disappearance. In 1951 the beautiful married mother of five left home and went to New York in search of the man who wrote 'Round Midnight. She found him and this is the extraordinary account of what happened next. A journey that took her from Harlem to Hell and back again. She went to prison for him and gave up everything familiar. But why? Helen Mirren reads Pannonica's words and Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, TS Monk junior, Roy Haynes, Curtis Fuller, The Duchess of Devonshire and other luminaries tell their side of the story. This film is the result of a ten year search to solve the puzzle of Pannonica. Director Hannah Rothschild, 82 mins.