Lindy Bomb wrote:I rented that video once, A Great Day in Harlem. It was pretty sweet, there were lots of little anecdotes told about some jazz greats. Gives you a bit of insight into the perosonality of many Harlem musicians.
A few weeks ago at the George Eastman House here in Rochester, the director, Jean Bach, made a presentation of A Great Day in Harlem and its follow-up, The Spitball Story. The latter was about the famed incident which got Dizzy Gillespie fired from Cab Calloway's band. Both are very entertaining and highly recommended.
Jean Bach is a totally cool lady. Biggest female jazz fan that I've ever encountered. She was friends with tons of jazz musicians going back to the 30's (I think she is somewhere over 80 herself).
There is a DVD of both of these films out there, but she mentioned she was working on what would amount to a "special edition" DVD, which would include tons of interview footage not included in the original (which was filmed in the late 80's), plus perhaps new interview footage with more jazz greats.