Best movies like Rediscovering Dave Brubeck

A 1925 film directed by John Francis Dillon.

Betty Boop goes to see the fearsome Old Man of the Mountain for herself; he sings the title song and a duet with Betty.

Jazz is my Native Language: A Portrait of Toshiko Akiyoshi is a 1983 documentary film by Renee Cho about the jazz pianist, composer, arranger and big band leader Toshiko Akiyoshi.

Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex and Delia Lane, a jealous, ambitious drummer, Johnny Cousin, attempts to tear the interracial couple apart.

When her architect father brings home a much younger new wife, rebellious and resentful teen Jenny goes to extreme lengths to sabotage their relationship.

A fifteen-year-old boy wants to buy a gun from an adult racketeer named Priest, in order to become president of the gang to which he belongs, and to return them to active "bopping" (gang fighting) which has declined in Harlem.

Based upon the Celtic legend Tam Lin, a young man is bewitched by a beautiful, heartless, aging sorceress to become her lover. When his attention wanders to a lovely girl, he is doomed to ritual sacrifice by the sorceress.

When a young Afghan immigrant named Mina gets her first job in a nursing home, an unexpected friendship with Luis, a resident with dementia, reignites her love of music and changes her life forever.

French General Birabeau has been sent to Morocco to root out and destroy the Riffs, a band of Arab rebels, who threaten the safety of the French outpost in the Moroccan desert. Their dashing, daredevil leader is the mysterious "Red Shadow". Margot Bonvalet, a lovely, sassy French girl, is soon to be married at the fort to Birabeau's right-hand man, Captain Fontaine. Birabeau's son Pierre, in reality the Red Shadow, loves Margot, but pretends to be a milksop to preserve his secret identity. Margot tells Pierre that she secretly yearns to be swept into the arms of some bold, dashing sheik, perhaps even the Red Shadow himself. Pierre, as the Red Shadow, kidnaps Margot and declares his love for her.

The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.

Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."

Accused of a crime they didn't commit, two city kids and a magical horse are about to become the coolest outlaws ever to ride Into The West.

Danny has been in the army for 4 years, yet all he thinks about is Brooklyn and how great it is. When he returns after the war, he soon finds that Brooklyn is not so nice after all. He is able to share a place with Nick, the janitor of his old High School, and get a job as a singer in a music store. He also meets Leo, a talented pianist and his teacher Anne, whose dream is to singing Opera. When Jamie arrives from England, Danny tries to show him the Brooklyn experience and help him compose modern swing music. Together, these four also try to help Leo get the Brooklyn Music scholarship.

Director — and piano player — Clint Eastwood explores his life-long passion for piano blues, using a treasure trove of rare historical footage in addition to interviews and performances by such living legends as Pinetop Perkins and Jay McShann, as well as Dave Brubeck and Marcia Ball.

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.

In this all-black cast short, legendary blues singer Bessie Smith finds her gambler lover Jimmy messin' with a pretty, younger woman; he leaves and she sings the blues, with chorus and dancers.

Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his masculinity is thrown into question following a violent brawl.

With the help of her mother, family, friends, and fellow musicians, Aiyana Elliott reaches for her father, legendary cowboy troubadour, Ramblin' Jack Elliott. She explores who he is and how he got there, working back and forth between archival and contemporary footage. Born in 1932 in Brooklyn, busking through the South and West in the early 50s, a year with Woody Guthrie, six years flatpicking in Europe, a triumphant return to Greenwich Village in the early 60s, mentoring Bob Dylan, then life on the road, from gig to gig, singing and telling stories. A Grammy and the National Medal of Arts await Jack near the end of a long trail. What will Aiyana find for herself?

Little Larry Havens, whose father died in WWII, runs away from home to keep from being separated from "Shep," his father's dog. In Arizona, he is befriended by a kindly Mexican, Manuel Ortiz, who he is able to repay in time, with the aid of Sheriff "Cap" Weatherby, when Ortiz is suspected of crimes committed by local gangsters. "Shep" is instrumental in saving Ortiz from a lynching, and Larry, "Shep" and Ortiz all find a home with a couple they have befriended.

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.

THUNDER SOUL tells the true story of Conrad O. Johnson and the legendary Kashmere Stage Band. It was afros, pleated pants and platform shoes; James Brown, Sly Stone and Bootsy Collins. It was the ’70s, and an inner-city Houston high school was about to make history. Charismatic band leader, Conrad “Prof” Johnson would turn the school’s mediocre jazz band into a legendary, world-class funk powerhouse. Now, 35 years later, his students prepare to pay tribute to the man who changed their lives, the 92-year-old Prof. Some haven’t played their horns in decades, still they dust off their instruments determined to retake the stage to show Prof and the world that they’ve still got it.

A chronological look at the life and career of jazz musician, composer, and performer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012 ), presented through contemporary interviews, archival footage of interviews and performances, and commentary by family, fellow musicians, and aficionados. Emphases include his mother's influence, his wife's invention of college tours, his skill as an accompanist, the great quartet (with Desmond, Morello, and Wright), his ability to find musical ideas everywhere, his orchestral compositions, his religious conversion, and his unflagging sweet nature.

In the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, can anything save the modern man? Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and being a beast. He's decided to die on his 50th birthday, which is soon. He's rescued from his solipsism by the mysterious Hermine, who takes him dancing, introduces him to jazz and to the beautiful and whimsical Maria, and guides him into the hallucinations of the Magic Theater, which seem to take him into Hell. Can humour, sin, and derision lead to salvation?

A famous jazz trumpeter finds himself unable to cope with the problems of everyday life.

A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.

Using previously unseen performances, a biography of rock balladeer Roy Orbison told through his own voice, casting new light on the triumphs and tragedies that beset his career.

A provocative and wholly unique hybrid of dance, theatre and music, FELA! explores the world of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Winner of three 2010 Tony Awards including Best Choreography (Bill T. Jones). Featuring many of Fela Kuti’s most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones’ visionary staging, FELA! – an original new creation – comes via Broadway to London and the National Theatre. FELA! explores the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! reveals Kuti’s controversial life as an artist and political activist.

The exiled Austro-German musician and composer Artur Schnabel was a giant of his time, but in Germany today he is nearly forgotten. Pianist and Schnabel devotee Markus Pawlik (in collaboration with baritone Dietrich Henschel and the Szymanowski String Quartet) brings Artur Schnabel's greatest compositions back to Berlin with a filmed commemorative concert. Along the way, Pawlik visits the places, landscapes, and history that shaped Schnabel's life and music. "Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile" rediscovers an essential artist displaced by the catastrophe of the two World Wars and the Holocaust and inspired by the possibilities of modernism.

A mellow jazz guitarist is possessed by the ghost of a wild punk rocker.

Alex despises Modern Art but when he falls in love with an adorable French artist, he understands that the only way to conquer her heart is to pretend he is an artist. He now must win a Modern Art contest in order to win her heart.

Mantan takes a job as office boy at a new TV station and gets to watch several pre-recorded musical numbers.

Tom Waits is one of the most original musicians of the last five decades. Renowned for his gravelly voice and dazzling mix of musical styles, he's also one of modern music's most enigmatic and influential artists. Using rare archive, audio recordings and interviews, this film is a bewitching after-hours trip through the surreal, moonlit world of Waits' music - a portrait of a pioneering musician and his unique, alternative American songbook.

A profile of Dr. Marian Diamond, a brain scientist who is considered one of the founders of modern neuroscience.

The documentary will profile The Undertaker’s longtime confidant and manager, looking at “how William Moody went from ordinary mortician to one of the most unique and enduring figures in WWE history.

One record company has been a constant presence in popular music throughout our lives. EMI brought The Beatles to the world and in every decade since has been instrumental in producing some of Britain's most celebrated and enduring music.

A profile of the Duchess of Cambridge, exploring her transformation from a seemingly ordinary young woman to a future monarch and what this means for the royal family.

Traces the history and mechanics of the guitar riff over 60 years from the 1950s, from Chuck Berry through Hank Marvin, Black Sabbath and others to the White Stripes. Featuring interviews with some of the core arbiters of change and new techniques.

A musical documentary accompaniment to the 1994 benefit compilation album concerning AIDS in the African-American community.

With this project Pat Metheny has created a whole new way to make music. Based on a childhood fascination with his grandfather's player piano, Metheny commissioned new inventors to build an exciting array of acoustic mechanical musical instruments capable of responding to his touch on the guitar, resulting in a completely unique approach to solo performance.

A roaming hillbilly, on a quest to defy the Devil, encounters several supernatural characters and does battle with his silver-stringed guitar.

A struggling country music singer returns home after years spent on the road for one last chance to correct wrongs made and reunite with loved ones he abandoned.

Ray Charles plays himself in this film where he helps blind boy David in his struggle to regain his sight. David’s over-protective mother Peggy is afraid of the risks connected with restoring his sight. Ray tries to help the whole family, offering the heavy-drinking Peggy’s heavy-drinking partner Steve an opportunity to work with his band.

The life of Moses as told through the Book of Exodus, the imagination of a dying boy, and the ballads of his father.

Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande. It premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande in a performance conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work. The only opera Debussy ever completed, it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music.

A reconstituted Mr. Bungle assembles in the Eureka public library to perform their unique brand of music.

In this musical western, a cowboy band is offered the chance to appear in a Hollywood movie and begins the journey to the West Coast. Unfortunately, the band ends up stranded in Texas and must take a job running a ranch. Musical mayhem ensues: Songs include: "Let's Love Again," "Where the Prairie Meets the Sky," "Don't You Ever Be a Cowboy," "Texas Polka," "No Letter Today," "I Got Mellow in the Yellow of the Moon," "Sip Nip Song," "Salt-Water Cowboy," "The Blues," "Little Brown Jug" and "And Then."

Produced by Cook Group Incorporated and Star of Indiana, BLAST! brings together 68 brass, percussion and visual performers in a unique explosion of music and theatre. Born on athletic fields across the nation, BLAST! is a novel art form evolved from the showmanship of outdoor pageantry. Ranging from classical to the blues, it is jazz, rock and roll, and techno-pop. With color, light, movement and music, BLAST! explores and explodes the genre with new artistry.

In the racially turbulent UK of the early 70s, a group of black musicians came together in South London with a common love of rhythms and a message of peace. Cymande – with the dove as their symbol – combined jazz, funk, soul and Caribbean grooves to form a unique sound. Despite success in the USA they faced indifference in their native Britain, becoming disillusioned and disbanding. But the music lived on, as new generations of artists imbibed and reworked their pioneering sounds in fresh ways. From Soul II Soul to De La Soul, MC Solaar to The Fugees, the Dove had spread Cymande's message far and wide, prompting their return after forty years. This is their story.

1 Giant Leap is a concept band and media project consisting of the two principal artists, Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman. This is the film part of their first project. The result is a flowing, loose-knit tapestry of imagery, interviews, and diverse performances. Gathering material from 25 countries and dozens of famous and not-so-famous musicians, authors, celebrities, spiritualists, philosophers, and unique individuals from nearly every cultural background, this enveloping DVD is best enjoyed as a soothing audiovisual odyssey (select "loop mode" for continuous play!). Assembling this cornucopia by theme (Time, Inspiration, Sex, God, Death, etc.), Bridgeman and Catto function as co-composers with an astonishing array of collaborators, giving 1 Giant Leap its richly international (and some might say inter-spiritual) identity. The result is a far-reaching glimpse of our world through the eyes of those who improve it by their musical presence. --Jeff Shannon

To the dismay of his girlfriend, Charlie is introduced to the beatnik scene when he falls in love with a hep chick named Steve. But when he discovers Steve is mixed up with a vicious drug ring, he has to decide where his values really lie.