Product Details
- Starring: Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Buck Clayton, Art Blakey
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- Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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- Binding: VHS Tape
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- Director: Jean Bach
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- EAN: 9786303683560
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- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
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- ISBN: 6303683568
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- Label: Mvd Visual
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- Manufacturer: Mvd Visual
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- Number of Items: 1
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- Product Group: Video
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- Publisher: Mvd Visual
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- Release Date: 1997-10-07
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- Studio: Mvd Visual
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- Theatrical Release Date: 1995-02-24
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- Title: Great Day in Harlem
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- UPC: 760894111038
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: And what a day it was: nearly 60 jazz musicians, gathered on a Harlem street one morning in 1958 for what photographer Art Kane rightly, if immodestly, calls "the greatest picture of that era of musicians ever taken" (incredibly, it was also Kane's first professional shoot). Like Ken Burns's Jazz, this 60-minute documentary, an Oscar nominee in 1995, is a mixed-media affair: still photographs and 8 millimeter color footage (shot by bassist Milt Hinton and his wife) of the day itself are combined with interviews, background music, and performance clips of some of the players involved (from legends like Lester Young, Count Basie, Charles Mingus, and Thelonious Monk to lesser-knowns like Maxine Sullivan, Red Allen, and Vic Dickenson) to tell the story. There are anecdotes about 35-cent dinners, all-night jams, and film loaded upside down; about pianist Horace Silver's vegetarian diet and trumpeter Roy Eldridge's high notes; about old friends reuniting and what Hinton calls "just sheer happiness." Looking at the photo years later, Dizzy Gillespie sums it up simply: "There's a whole lotta people I like on there!" And speaking of Diz, the DVD also includes "The Spitball Story" (produced, like the Great Day documentary, by Jean Bach), an entertaining if slight tale about the trumpeter's days with bandleader Cab Calloway. Seems Gillespie, a renowned practical joker, delighted in launching spitballs at his fellow musicians. Calloway wasn't amused--especially when one particular projectile landed onstage near him. Although Gillespie for once was not the culprit, the two had a nasty confrontation, resulting in Dizzy's firing from the band. It was, he recalls, "the best move I ever made in music." --Sam Graham
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Customer Reviews
Great Day in Harlem
I really enjoyed this 2 disc CD. I had the picture and knew about the background but these CDs completed the picture. If you are interested in Jazz, this is a must have. It also makes a great gift.
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A great photo and now a grteat dvd
The hardest thing was certainly for Art Kane (the photographer) to manage schedules of all those musicians who appears on his famous picture, never the less the DVD is interesting as it allows those who were still alive at the time the movie was made to express themselves on that "Great Day in Harlem" and for that alone it is nice...
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Sweeeet!
Man is this fun to watch! All these classic old jazz players reminiscing about this ultimate jazz photo and the times surrounding it. Full of funny vignettes and some snippets of very fine music, it's a primo history lesson. Diz in particular is hilarious.
So many legends here; the extras are superb. A 90-minute movie is now a 6-hour treat! That's what Special Features should be: special.
A true must for any fan of jazz in the 50s, a golden era.
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Bev Texas
Excellent is all I can say, WOW, so much talent and so many have gone. If you are a Jazz lover, what a collection to have, with music, interviews and history. A must buy!!!!!
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got to have it.
Great documentary about a unique event. If you are into jazz you should see it. I wish it had more music on it, but you can't have everything!
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