Newcastle's Tyneside Cinema is one of relatively few movie houses showing Sacha Jenkin's new documentary film on the life and times of Louis Armstrong. The story is largely familiar: the legendary jazz musician performing across the globe, his fame global, one of the few jazz 'names' to transcend the jazz world.
In one hour and forty four minutes, do we learn anything new about the great man? The concert performances are familiar, so too many of the photographs, what is new is access to the vast archive of Armstrong's reel-to-reel recordings. Recordings in which the man speaks his mind. Expletives aren't deleted (good!), Armstrong dispelling any notion that he was an 'Uncle Tom' character. Enrico Tomasso (pictured) appears but, we've seen it before, a few seconds of a young, very young Rico, meeting his hero, Louis Armstrong. If you're unable to catch the cinema release, Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues is available now on Apple TV+. Russell
No comments :
Post a Comment