Title: The history of modern jazz
Original title: Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz
Released: 1997
Genre: Documentary, Music
Directed by Julian Benedikt, Andreas Morell
Cast: Freddie Hubbard, Jill Mell, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver, Carlos Santana, Johnny Griffin, Bertrand Tavernier, Ron Carter, Maurice Cullaz, Ruth Lyon

Plot of the film:

The artists list on this Blu-ray reads like a Who's Who of the best international jazz musicians of all times. It features Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins - musicians whose names have become synonymous with the great Jazz Age in the 1950s and 60s. With Carlos Santana, Cassandra Wilson and André Previn and jazz experts like Joachim Ernst Berendt and Bertrand Tavernier, the list of interviewees and artists on this Blu-ray becomes encyclopaedic. But how many people have heard of Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, to whom we owe the recorded memory of our Jazz legends? These two Jewish Germans emigrated from Nazi Germany to New York in 1939 and promoted Jazz Music, which at the time had received little serious attention from mainstream America. Without money or connections and speaking little English, the two men began to record practically unknown musicians, following their own taste and judgement, and thus establishing the legendary Blue Note label. "Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz" tells the story of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, of a friendship in exile and of uncompromising artistic excellence. Told by the musicians, by friends, associates and fans of the Blue Note recordings from all walks of life, the film recreates an era of American cultural history. Directed by German filmmaker Julian Benedikt ("Play your own thing", available on EuroArts 2,055,748), it was the most successful movie about jazz ever to hit the worldwide cinemas. This testimony to the passion and vision of two men, interspersed with concert recordings and rarely seen archival footage, swings like the propulsive sounds that made their label so famous - a great music film!

Tracklist:
01. Founding Blue Note Records
02. Escaping Pre-War Germany
03. Building Up the Label
04. "It must schwing"
05. Jazz Visionaries
06. Producing Records
07. Sampling Blue Note
08. Jazz Photography
09. Development Over Decades
10. The Characteristic Artwork
11. Europe's Recognition of Jazz
12. The Black "Sound"
13. An Era Ends
14. Credits

Issued: Germany
Duration: 1:30:47