A Great Day in Harlem

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08/19/2020 Who would have thought that a documentary about a single photograph would be one that I didn't want to end. This Oscar nominated doc captured what happened when in 1958, many of our finest jazz musicians mostly managed to show up before noon for a group photograph at 17 E.126th Street taken by Art Kane for Esquire magazine. The people in this photo comprise many of the heavy hitters of that day. Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Monk, Mingus, Gene Krupa, Marian McPartland, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young and more. Only an hour long, it tells the story of how and why the photo came together, and gives you a few minutes on many of the people in the film. The photo inspired many more to attempt to copy if with various other "A Great Day In _____" themes. It was even a plot point in the Spielberg film ‘The Terminal'. Let me also take a second to appreciate that these are the names of two people in the photo: Stuff Smith, Miff Mole, Zutty Singleton, Benny Golson and Sonny Rollins are the only two in this photo that are still alive. See more 08/15/2014 Nice introduction to jazz, great story, great photo, but unfortunately is a little too arm's-length to inspire much in my opinion. See more 08/07/2011 Brief view of acknowledged jazz royalty and the lesser-known but talented others who gathered together for a photo. See more 09/12/2009 Really enjoyed this docu. Jazz and and photography, two top subjects. Really interesting, fab music. See more 05/12/2009 I?ve had this in my Netflix queue (I know, Netflix, sooooo 2007. But anyway?) forever and it was paired with some Spitball movie documentary and was always pushed back by something b-movie-ish or quasi-scary. And I have a friend who always had this dvd stacked in front of the TV, but never asked to borrow it (I don?t see them that often). Well, the standalone documentary is not on instant view and I didn?t know since it was different. This is a historic, legendary, iconic, every superlative descriptive term photo. This documentary interviews a lot of them and those involved in taking the photo, but even more so has all the other photos and video that someone was taking during that time. Everyone?s personality was great and there are back stories to many of the others that were not as popular. Great, great, great. Go see it. Great. See more 05/31/2008 An insanely boring movie that consists of talking heads for a whole 60mins. The fantastic photo does not live up to the content within the film. Movie did not live up to my expectations. See more Read all reviews

A Great Day in Harlem

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