Kansas City - Jazz '34 - part one

Jazz-on-film seems to become the new hype as the DVD ousts the CD from the market. A well known film is Robert Altmans Kansas City. The film was no success and I still haven't seen a DVD copy of it in the record shop.

The story is very meager, but the shots of the band playing the music are great. The musicians, all playing 1930s Kansas City musicians are in fact 1990s leading jazz artists, mostly recording for the Verve label, like Kevin Mahogany, Nicholas Payton, James Zollar, Don Byron, James Carter, Jesse Davis, David Fathead Newman, David Murray, Joshua Redman, Russell Malone , Mark Whitfield, Geri Allen, Cyrus Chestnut, Ron Carter, Christian McBride and Victor Lewis. The sound tracks are available on two CDs ( Verve 529 554 and KC After Dark ( Verve 537 322 ). As I learned from the Jazzforum (Yannick's list) most of you are ignorant about the existence of the Robert Altman documentary Kansas City - Jazz '34 which contains the concerts / jams of the All Star Kansas City Bandas used as shots in the film. A great image of the time! I never have seen it as a DVD or Video tape, but it has been broadcasted on a Dutch or Belgian TV station some years ago