One Night with Blue Note (2004)
Concert performance by 30 jazz greats from the Blue Note label, at Town Hall, New York City, February 22nd, 1985.
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Good start, but then it gets ruined
Good concept, poorly executed.
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Even if you're not really into the typical Blue Note recordings, this concert is worthwhile watching/listening. With a wide range on artists this music offers a lot of different jazz. There is some nice hard bop, like Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter and Tony Williams on Cantaloupe Island and the same line-up (add Bobby Hutcherson) on a swinging Recorda-Me. There's some more advanced bop also, like the superb Woody Shaw/Jackie McLean combination + rhythm section (McCoy Tyner, Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette) on Appointment in Ghana. To complete the (earlier) Blue Note success story there's some nice Soul in the spirit of the Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Smith and Stanley Turrentine '60 sessions, and those stars are all included here. Somewhat odd to me is the appearance of Cecil Taylor who finishes this concert with a plus 12 minute solo, though it's decent stuff anyhow. Some nice extra's feature a selection of Francis Wolffs photographs for the label and nice album art work. This DVD should appeal to a lot of jazz fans, since it offers different styles of jazz and on the whole it's superbly played and swinging. It's nice to see that a lot of the artists including here can still swing.