"Actor: Chico Hamilton"

• Jazz On A Summer's Day | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The 1959 Newport Jazz Festival was a true musical watershed, as Jazz on a Summers Day reveals. This 75-minute film captures an event poised on the cusp of a new era, as the cool jazz of Jimmy Guiffre and the effortless scat of Anita ODay intermingle with the hard bop of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and the smouldering fusion overtones of the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Theres a crisp contribution from Chuck Berry, a typically feel-good set from Louis Armstrong--including a hilarious duo with Jack Teagarden--and, as evening shades into night, a heartfelt performance from Mahalia Jackson, closing with a melting rendition of "The Lords Prayer". Bert Stern has assembled all these and more into a satisfying sequence, complete with footage of an enthusiastic and informal audience. Shots of the yachting line-up from the Americas Cup round out a blissful and what now seems blissfully naïve occasion. On the DVD: Colour picture quality has worn well, whereas sound has deteriorated notably at times: Thelonius Monks quarter-tones could easily be a semitone flat! Even so, its worth putting up with this to enjoy a tour through music-making whose relaxed spontaneity would be impossible to emulate today. --Richard Whitehouse

• The Jazz Baroness | DVD | (30/04/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The true story of a Jewish British Baroness who fell in love with the musical genius Thelonious Monk.Helen Mirren is the voice of the Jazz Baroness and Sonny Rollins, TS Monk Junior, The Duchess of Devonshire, Quincy Jones, Lord Rothschild, Roy Haynes, Chico Hamilton help recreate her story. The documentary uses private family papers, rare archive, original recordings and location filming to evocatively recreate the extraordinary life and times of the Jazz Baroness.