A Great Day in Harlem (1994)
Flo-Bert Ltd.

Description

In August of 1958, in front of a Harlem brownstone, first-time photographer Art Kane assembled 57 of the greatest jazz stars of all time and snapped a picture that would live forever. Narrated by Quincy Jones, this Academy Award-nominated documentary examines the fascinating lives of the musicians who showed up that day to make history. Through remarkable interviews with nearly 30 jazz greats (including Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey), home movies shot by Milt and Mona Hinton, and rare, archival performance footage, A Great Day in Harlem tells the story behind a legendary photograph that is still alive and kicking - and jammin'!

Tags

Oscar nomination, Jazz, Photography, 1950s

Collected reviews and ratings

10 DVD Talk | Gil Jawetz

Even without the historical significance, A Great Day in Harlem would be extremely entertaining. When you consider that these stories will be gone one day, it becomes essential.
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9.2 Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

It's the backup stuff that enlivens this pleasant, somewhat clunky docu, especially the valuable addition of the 8-mm home movies shot by jazzman Milt Hinton's wife, Mona, as the musicians assembled.
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9.0 Amazon user reviews

To have a record of the story of this historical photograph is truly a blessing. It was a great day for my DVD collection when I acquired this wonderful film.
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8.3 Time Out

All the contemporary interviews are fascinating and touching, too: Blakey and Diz are gone now. The musical clips aren't over-familiar and are killingly good. A wonderful, warm little movie.
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8.0 DVD Verdict | Joe Armenio

As a jazz fan, I'm glad that this film exists and that people enjoy it; jazz seems to be more respected than actually listened to, and if A Great Day in Harlem inspires anyone to pick up an Art Blakey album, I suppose it's done its job.
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7.5 digitallyobsessed.com | Jon Danziger

It must have been a great day, and it's a cool photo, but the film is really more of just an annotation of Kane's snapshot—the movie is really doing its job if it gets you to re-listen to some old favorites, or to see just what winners you may have missed in the jazz section at Tower or on iTunes.
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7.5 ReelViews | James Berardinelli

The picture itself is remarkable - an amazing feat of good fortune that a photographer could gather this many musical luminaries on the corner of Lennox Avenue and 125th Street at 10 o'clock in the morning. In many ways, this film is no less worthy of observation and archiving.
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7.0 Variety | Godfrey Cheshire

For non-buffs, pic fails the acid test of exciting interest where there was little or none before; it could easily have covered the same ground in half its length. Jazz die-hards, on the other hand, may well wish for more time in the company of the numerous heroes assembled here.
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