Bill Charlap Movies
- 2009
Director Bruce Ricker teams with Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood to craft this comprehensive look at the life and music of Johnny Mercer, who penned such timeless hits as "Moon River". "That Old Black Magic", and "Jeepers Creepers". Interviews with singers Tony Bennett and Julie Andrews, composers, filmmakers, music historians, and Broadway producers offer insight into what it was that made Mercer's songs so special, and clips of artists like Barbra Streisand, Fred Astaire, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole, among others, performing his work, give testament to the enduring appeal of the music he created. Rare interviews with the composer himself, and archival interviews with Mercer's wife Ginger, among others, offer a vivid portrait of the man behind the music. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Johnny Mercer, Bill Charlap, (more)
- 2007
- Add Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 to Queue Add Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 to top of Queue
While in the 21st century many musical instruments are mass-produced on an assembly line, at the Steinway Factory in Queens, NY, grand pianos are still made largely by hand, much as they were centuries before, and each piano develops a tonal personality very much its own as it slowly takes shape in the hands of expert craftsmen. Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 is a documentary from filmmaker Ben Niles that follows the meticulous process of creating one of these remarkable instruments, from the harvesting of the wood in the Pacific Northwest to the final touches before the piano is sent to the sales floor of a music store. Along the way, Niles talks to many of the people who have had a hand in the making of this piano, as well as those who later hear music being performed on the instrument. Note by Note was screened in competition at the 2007 Silverdocs Film Festival, a competition founded by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- 2006
- Add Tony Bennett: An American Classic to Queue Add Tony Bennett: An American Classic to top of Queue
The concert film Tony Bennett: An American Classic serves as a video accompaniment and companion piece to the legendary crooner's 2006 album of the same title. On that LP, Bennett duets on a series of pop standards, with nineteen of the world's top rock and pop artists. In the film version - originally produced and aired on NBC - Bennett teams up with many of the same guests, including Christina Aguilera, k.d. Lang, Stevie Wonder, Chris Botti, Elton John, Juanes, John Legend, Barbra Streisand and Diana Krall, to celebrate his own 80th birthday. Rob Marshall, the helmer of Chicago, directs. Tracks include: "Smile" with Streisand, "Sing, You Sinners" with Legend, "Because of You" with Lang and Botti, "The Best is Yet to Come" with Krall, "The Shadow of Your Smile" with Juanes, "Rags to Riches with John, "Just in Time" with Michael Buble, "For Once in My Life" with Wonder and "Steppin' Out" with Aguilera. Bennett then performs his standard closer, the seminal "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," as a solo number. Throughout, Marshall and his collaborators re-create, via elaborate onstage production design, classic settings from various periods in Bennett's life and career, including the 52nd Street Swing Club, one of the earlier incarnations of Columbia's recording studio, Carnegie Hall, the stage of the 'Rat Pack,' the set of Bennett's infamous MTV Unplugged performance in the early nineties, and much, much more. As these settings magically come to life on stage, such celebrities as Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Crystal, Robert de Niro, John Travolta and Bruce Willis, recount the tale of Bennett's life, career and musical journey, and their narration is interwoven with the musical performances by Bennett and his fellow vocalists. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tony Bennett
- 2006
Robert S. Levi writes and directs this Emmy Award-winning documentary focusing on the life of pioneering gay composer and jazz musician Billy Strayhorn, whose compositions for Duke Ellington included such timeless classics as "Satin Doll" and "Take the A Train". The driving creative force behind the Duke Ellington Orchestra from the 1940s through the 1980s, Strayhorn produced a staggering body of work that included everything from jazz greats to orchestral suites and even film soundtracks. Though historians and scholars alike are quick to single out Strayhorn as one of the most woefully overlooked American composers in history - he was a virtual unknown when he succumbed to throat cancer in 1967 - his influence lives on even at the dawn of the 21st Century. With this film, Levi offers a comprehensive view of who Strayhorn really was as both a person and a musician, while simultaneously exploring why he remains a relative unknown even to ardent jazz enthusiasts. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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