Seattle Jazz: A Documentary

Seattle Jazz will be a one-and-a-half hour documentary shot in high-definition video for distribution as a television program, a theatrical feature, and a DVD.  The heart of the show will be the oral history interviews of the godfathers and godmothers of Seattle jazz: the artists, impresarios, DJ’s, and club owners who developed and promoted the scene from the fifties, sixties and seventies to the present.  But this is a show about music, and musical examples by the interview subjects on their instruments will be heavily featured. 

Hosted by the great Seattle jazz pianist Overton Berry, the interviews and reminiscences will have an intimate “inside” quality that comes from one musician talking with another.  The stories – moving, illuminating, or hilarious (or all three) – will be illustrated by a lick played here, a chord progression demonstrated there.  Overton’s own career, stretching back to the late fifties, gives him a special personal perspective on the development of the scene.  Major jazz artists with Northwest roots such as Ernestine Anderson, Diane Schuur, Larry Coryell, Julian Priester, and Quincy Jones are likely interview subjects.  Seattle jazz luminaries Floyd Standifer, Buddy Catlett, Chuck and Joni Metcalf, Art Foxall, Greta Metassa, Denny Goodhew, Woody Woodhouse and numerous others will tell the story, each from their own unique perspective.  Jazz artist/educator Clarence Acox, jazz writer Paul deBarros, and jazz radio host Jim Wilke will provide perspective and insight.  Club owners and impresarios like Norm Bobrow and John Dimitriou will lay out the economic realities of jazz in the hinterlands, and tell stories of the famous venues that helped define the scene.

Today, Seattle has a vibrant and growing jazz scene.  Ensembles from Garfield, Roosevelt, Mountlake Terrace, and Shorewood High Schools sweep the awards at Lincoln Center.  Jazz players out of Cornish College of the Arts and the University of Washington are held in high regard around the world.  Great venues like Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, Tula’s, and The Triple Door showcase major talent to eager audiences.  Earshot Jazz presents a sweeping jazz festival annually.  The seeds of this blossoming were planted years ago by many dedicated artists, often toiling in obscurity, in love with the music and struggling to bring it to a wider audience.

To honor these musicians, Seattle Jazz will culminate in footage of a major concert specially staged for the documentary featuring the “Godparents of Seattle Jazz”.  The concert will celebrate all of the artists from the past that are still with us and able to perform, supported by the incredible talents that are turning Seattle into a major jazz center.

Seattle Jazz is for anyone who loves jazz.  It celebrates the true spirit of the music by celebrating the people “in the trenches” who kept the music alive.  Our focus is on Seattle, a city that turns out to have a remarkably rich jazz heritage and scene, even though it’s a place not traditionally associated with jazz in the national consciousness.  Its audience includes not just the legions of jazz fans across the country, but students, educators, history buffs, and anyone interested in a story of American cultural and social history that has been untold on video until now.

Seattle artist Art Foxall preparing to perform for the documentary