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Blue Note - A Story Of Modern Jazz

The story of Blue Note Records is the story of Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, two German Jews from Berlin, who emigrated to New York in 1939 and made a profession out of their love for black music. Like the USA's oppressed minority of the black population, the two find a second home in this music. From Thelonious Monk to Art Blakey, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, through to Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor: Unlike any other record label, Blue Note drew our attention over several decades to a number of the most important jazz musicians and set unsurpassed standards. Blue Note was the first record company to understand that there was a link between the look of a record and the music featured on it. Consequently, Blue Note records not only influenced musicians but also designers, filmmakers, actors and even sportsmen. The film covers music history from the company's beginnings in boogie woogie through swing, bebop, hardbop, modern jazz and avantgarde to the present day. At the same time, the film looks at the fascinating combination of European heritage with the purest form of American culture - jazz.
Julian Benedikt was born in 1963 and studied French and German at the Sorbonne in Paris as well as Classical Music (flute and saxophone) in Detmold and Frankfurt. He worked as an associate producer for advertising films, documentaries and feature films in Germany, France and the US from 1985 and also appeared as an actor in films by Rudolf Thome (Love At First Sight, 1992), Roseline Delacour (High Tension, 1994) and Dodine Herry (Je n'en ferai pas un drame, 1995) and for television in Cognacq - Jay for the cultural broadcaster ARTE in 1993. He has written and directed the documentaries Chico Hamilton - Dancing to a Different Drummer (1993/94), Voodoo Chile - The Music of Jimi Hendrix (1995), Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz (1996) - winner of the C.I.C.A.E Award for Best Film in 1997, as well as the Vision Award and the Peabody Award in 1998), and Jazz Seen (2001).
Category Documentary
Year of Production 1996
Director Julian Benedikt
Screenplay Julian Benedikt
Director of Photography Wiliam Rexer
Editor Andrew Hulme
Cast Carlos Santana, Bertrand Tavernier, Cassandra Wilson, Herbie Hancock, DJ Smash, André Previn, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Max Roach
Producer Ulli Pfau
Production Company EuroArts Entertainment/Stuttgart, in co-production with ARTE/Strasbourg, SDR/Stuttgart
Length 90 min
Format 35 mm, color, b&w
Original Version German/English/French
Subtitled Versions German, English
Sound Technology Dolby
With backing from MFG Baden-Württemberg
World Sales
EuroArts Medien AG
Hohenzollerndamm 150
14199 Berlin/Germany
phone +49-30-88 70 81 73
fax +49-30-88 70 81 70
info@euroarts.com
http://www.euroarts.com/
Year of Production 1996
Director Julian Benedikt
Screenplay Julian Benedikt
Director of Photography Wiliam Rexer
Editor Andrew Hulme
Cast Carlos Santana, Bertrand Tavernier, Cassandra Wilson, Herbie Hancock, DJ Smash, André Previn, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Max Roach
Producer Ulli Pfau
Production Company EuroArts Entertainment/Stuttgart, in co-production with ARTE/Strasbourg, SDR/Stuttgart
Length 90 min
Format 35 mm, color, b&w
Original Version German/English/French
Subtitled Versions German, English
Sound Technology Dolby
With backing from MFG Baden-Württemberg
World Sales
EuroArts Medien AG
Hohenzollerndamm 150
14199 Berlin/Germany
phone +49-30-88 70 81 73
fax +49-30-88 70 81 70
info@euroarts.com
http://www.euroarts.com/


