I have seen so many films about the Harlem Renaissance, I was beginning to reflect that there was no film that both captured and explained the history of the period and also made learning fun for students. As a teacher, I exhaust this DVD with my 12 and 13 year venerable students. The elephantine versions of songs on the bonus piece of the DVD shows the power that visual and audio images can have and had contrivance before MTV. For the label and quality, this is a must have for educators, and a joy for historians and music lovers in general.
It is certainly hard to glean films in jazz from this time period, so this collection is a very essential one. The quality of the recordings are astonishing considering their age, and the representations of the music/musicians sometimes surprising, even for those who eye jazz culture.
Although the commentary may not give you remarkable information beyond an introductory level, being able to eye jazz performance is something which simply reading about the period can’t compare to. One thing to mention–though this DVD is entitled Harlem Renaissance, it seems like several of these films were produced after renaissance was considered to be over.
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