Cinematic Notes From All Over: Special "Let Us Now Praise Famous Jazz Guys" Edition

Okay, I realize this is rather far afield from the traditional subject matter of this here blog, but I just saw a music documentary that is so cool I really have to share.

Ladies and germs, may I please present for your attention -- director Brigitte Berman's Artie Shaw: Time is All You've Got.

I'm not even remotely a scholar of the Big Band era, but before seeing the film, I at least knew the bare-bones of Shaw's history -- i.e., that afficianados of his genre are more or less agreed that, musically speaking, his stuff was more interesting than that of his better known contemporaries Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, and that, on the recorded evidence, his ouevre swung harder than anybody elses. (He was also probably closer than any of them to a contemporary rock star, given his love/hate relationship with his audience, his ahead-of-its time interest in the esthetic of the recording studio, and his understanding of celebrity itself as a kind of Post-Modern phenom). I should add that the film originally came out in 1985; I was thus amused the other day to learn that after it won an Academy Award (for Best Documentary) in 1987, the ever-fractious Shaw sued its makers on the grounds that since it had become more critically and commercially successful than expected, he was thus entitled to a greater share of the film's profits (Shaw lost the suit, BTW).

Anyway, when you see the flick, I guarantee you won't be bored for even a millisecond. Shaw is a resolutely magnetic presence -- funny, articulate, combative -- and he's onscreen (in shot-for-the-film interview footage) for most of the movie. The myriad guest interviewees, many of whom are almost as compelling as the titular star, include Shaw's 8th(!) and last ex-wife, actress Evelyn Keyes (Scarlett's younger sister in Gone With the Wind) and the Velvet Frog himself, the great Mel Torme, neither of whom fail to address Shaw's (er) difficult qualities.

I should also add that there's a particulary wonderful sequence about the making of his 1945 hit recording of Gershwin's "Summertime," featuring trumpeter Roy Eldridge...

...and if you can listen to the finished product without getting goosebumps you need to have your meds checked immediately.

In any event, adding to the fun, the new 4K restoration (supervised by Berman) looks and sounds fantastic. The film has never previously been available for home viewing, so I'm happy to report that you'll be able to stream it at Film Movement Plus starting this Friday; a Blu-ray version goes on sale over at Amazon at the end of next month.

Bottom line: To paraphrase the immortal words of Siskel and Ebert -- four very enthusiastic thumbs ups!!! 😎