Movie: Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas

Top 8 Billed Cast

Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee

Self (archive footage)

Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan

Self (archive footage)

Nina Simone
Nina Simone

Self (archive footage)

Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald

Self (archive footage)

Annie Ross
Annie Ross

Self

Melody Gardot
Melody Gardot

Self

Madeleine Peyroux
Madeleine Peyroux

Self

Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday

Self (archive footage)

  • HomePage

    Queens of Jazz: The Joy and Pain of the Jazz Divas

  • Overview

    The documentary tracks the diva's difficult progress as she emerges from the tough, testosterone-fuelled world of the big bands of the 30s and 40s, to fill nightclubs and saloons across the US in the 50s and early 60s as a force in her own right. Looking at the lives and careers of six individual singers (Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Annie Ross), the film not only talks to those who knew and worked with these queens of jazz, but also to contemporary singers who sit on the shoulders of these trailblazing talents without having to endure the pain and hardship it took for them to make their highly individual voices heard above the prejudice of mid-century America.

  • Release Date

    2013-05-10

  • Average

    0

  • Rating:

    0.0 starts
  • Tagline

  • Genres

  • Languages:

    English
  • Keywords

Similar Movies

Bird
68%

Bird(en)

1988-06-01

Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.

Ibogaine: Rite of Passage
66%

Ibogaine: Rite of Passage(en)

2004-09-27

Ibogaine is a plant extract that stops drug addiction. In this documentary, a 34-year-old heroin addict undergoes ibogaine therapy with Dr Martin Polanco at the Ibogaine Association, a clinic in Rosarito, Mexico. In Gabon, where use of the iboga root is traditional, a Babongo woman's tribe uses the plant to help her recover from a depressive malaise. Director Benjamin De Loenen interviews people formerly addicted to heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, who share their perspectives about ibogaine treatment.

Low Down
56%

Low Down(en)

2014-01-19

The daughter of jazz pianist Joe Albany witnesses her beloved father's struggle -- and failure -- to kick his heroin habit.

Stateless
50%

Stateless(en)

2020-09-17

Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows families of those affected by the 2013 legislation stripping citizenship from Dominicans of Haitian descent, uncovering the complex history and present-day politics of Haiti and the Dominican Republic through the grassroots electoral campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris.

Repo! The Genetic Opera
63%

Repo! The Genetic Opera(en)

2008-11-07

By the year 2056, an epidemic of organ failures has devastated the planet. The megacorporation GeneCo provides organ transplants on a payment plan - and those who can’t fulfill their plans have their organs repossessed. In the midst of this, a sickly teenager discovers a shocking secret about herself, her father, and their connection to GeneCo.

Giuli - It Was A Dream
0%

Giuli - It Was A Dream(ka)

2023-09-18

Forgotten by all, an elderly jazz singer lives through the fragments of her past. Inspired by the true story of Giuli Chokheli, the most famous female Georgian jazz singer of her time, sometimes referred to as the Georgian Ella Fitzgerald. In this movie, Giuli Chokheli plays herself at the age of 87.

Daybreak Express
73%

Daybreak Express(en)

1953-01-01

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Ray
74%

Ray(en)

2004-10-29

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

Caixa D'Água: Qui-Lombo é Esse?
0%

Caixa D'Água: Qui-Lombo é Esse?(pt)

2012-12-04

The documentary "Caixa D'água: Qui-lombo is this?" It reports, through testimonies from former residents and photographic collections, the importance in the cultural and historical scope of the Getúlio Vargas neighborhood located in Aracaju, capital of Sergipe. Emphasis is placed on black culture and the presence of black slaves and their descendants, with the rescue of issues related to their origin, orality, geographical location and awareness of their racial identity, showing that, although this community exists in an urban area, it still maintains many aspects of the quilombo life of the former black slaves in Brazil.

The Blues Brothers
77%

The Blues Brothers(en)

1980-06-16

Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.

Diva Janus
0%

Diva Janus(ko)

2022-08-13

Fatal Flood
0%

Fatal Flood(en)

2001-04-16

In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans, inundating hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted the majority black population against an aristocratic plantation family, the Percys, and the Percys against themselves. A dramatic story of greed, power and race during one of America's greatest natural disasters.

Jazz Icons: Count Basie Live in '62
0%

Jazz Icons: Count Basie Live in '62(en)

2006-07-13

The concert captured on William "Count" Basie's entry in the "must-own" audio/video Jazz Icons series comes from the vaults of Swedish Television. Modern eyes and ears are whisked to April 24, 1962, with Basie conducting his Atomic-era orchestra.

Bliss
100%

Bliss(en)

2019-01-14

After a tragic series of events in his life, Rob discovers the over-the-counter drug known as codeine. The effects of the pill are so strong and addictive, that soon, Rob becomes dependant and consumes them daily. But the less he feels the more he misses, as his life degrades into a deep, dangerous, oblivion of bliss.

I forgive you, Mama
0%

I forgive you, Mama(en)

Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.

Subject: Narcotics
70%

Subject: Narcotics(en)

1951-01-01

Educational film about drug addiction.

Swimming to Ferguson
0%

Swimming to Ferguson(en)

2018-09-14

Beneath the fury of Ferguson unrest, an affable professor dedicates his life to actionable, peaceful change while attempting the grueling triple crown of ultra-marathon swimming.

Glenn Fredly: The Movie
70%

Glenn Fredly: The Movie(id)

2024-04-25

Starting from the determination and great desire to create a music concert to embrace peace in Ambon City, Glenn ultimately gave up all his income to hold the concert.

New York, New York
66%

New York, New York(en)

1977-06-21

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

A City Decides
57%

A City Decides(en)

1956-01-01

A City Decides chronicles the events that led to the integration of the St. Louis public schools in 1954. An Oscar-nominated short documentary from 1956.