Jazzwomen


1h 19m 2001

Brief Synopsis

Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bessie Smith are known around the world as musical legends. Yet many equally hard-working and talented women have remained peripheral figures, known principally by only their peers and fans of jazz. This film is a tribute to these women, most in their seventies,

Film Details

Genre
Documentary
Music
Release Date
2001

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 19m

Synopsis

Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bessie Smith are known around the world as musical legends. Yet many equally hard-working and talented women have remained peripheral figures, known principally by only their peers and fans of jazz. This film is a tribute to these women, most in their seventies, and all still performing (bar the sadly under appreciated Teri Thorton who died before this film was finished). Of the better-known and impressive figures here, Abby Lincoln, Barbara Carroll and Annie Ross, Lincoln in particular is mesmerising. Singularly brilliant, she comes across as a ferociously intelligent and gifted artist. The film's admiration for these women, who have sacrificed the conventional securities of home and family to pursue their love of music, is infectious. It's impossible not to be moved when newcomer Judy Bady's voice cracks as she wonders whether it's worth being alone, broke and so far from home to be in the 'jazz capital' of the world, New York City...

Film Details

Genre
Documentary
Music
Release Date
2001

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 19m

Quotes

Trivia

Miscellaneous Notes

Shown at London Film Festival (World Cinema) November 7-22, 2001.