Jazz Resources from the Library: Home

In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and medications, and his mind haunted my unsettling ghosts from the past.

A jazz pianist falls for an aspiring actress in Los Angeles. This original musical about everyday life explores the joy and pain of pursuing dreams.

Jazz legend Chet Baker's tumultuous life is thrillingly re-imagined with wit, verve, and style to burn. In the 1950s, Baker was one of the most famous trumpeters in the world, renowned as both a pione er of the West Coast jazz scene and an icon of cool.

The life of legendary jazz musician Charlie "Yardbird" Parker.

In 1955, as the Soviet Union's pervasive propaganda about the U.S. and American racism spread globally, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. convinced President Eisenhower that jazz was the best way to intervene in the Cold War cultural conflict. For the next decade, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Dave Brubeck traveled the globe to perform as cultural ambassadors.

In 2007, the US Embassy in London supported a unique film initiative as part of its program of communities outreach program. The result was 'Jazz Bridges: Music Without Frontiers', a concert film depicting the meeting of two very different styles of musical genre: Western (American) Jazz and Eastern (Afghan) Folk. The result is a fusion of styles that is rarely communicated on camera.

10 episodes tracing the history of Jazz from its roots in the African-American community of New Orleans to its heights and continuing presence.

BBC archivists recently unearthed a veritable treasure trove of over 2 hours of previously unreleased Ella Fitzgerald concerts recorded by the BBC. This is an added bonus performance from Jazz From Montreux (1977).

Combining unseen footage with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible life journey that spans "The Harlem Hell Fighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural production.

Scheinfeld crafts a story that reveals and affirms the impact Trane had on a variety of musicians, politicians, educators and artists - including Kamasi Washington, President Bill Clinton, Common, the Doors' John Densmore, Dr. Cornel West, Yasuhiro Fujioka, and many others.

Examines the careers of several women who were prominent in the 1930s jazz scene, along with contemporary female jazz artists.