People gather around two competing brass bands, showing off their musical and performance skills, and not unlike politicians, competing for the public. The reality turns black and white and bands are in a film. The sound is arrives from a band just beneath the silver screen playing Wynton Marsalis' arrangements and compositions and improvising in some of the more traditional jazz styles.

The film is a new silent film, directed by Dan Pritzker and starring Anthony Coleman as a very young Louis Armstrong. The film deserved the many good reviews it already gained, as it not only takes you on a journey through an imaginative start-of-the-century New Orleans but through a musical approach that regularly mimics the scenes in the film and creates a pumping jungle and dixie atmosphere.

The many emotional moments in the film are balanced by the humorous, Chaplin styled acting, all going way to the beginning. The pure essence in the movie is maybe not an artistic existential story, but definitely a one worth watching and listening. Live band provided.

– Mak Murtic