Celebrating Bird - The Triumph of Charlie Parker

This is the best jazz video to date. This brilliant film burns his totality into the consciousness just like a classic Parker solo.

Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, Tuesday, February 25, 1988

Satchmo - Louis Armstrong

If you want to know the meaning of the word charisma, don’t miss this 90-minute PBS American Masters portrait of the world’s most famous horn player, Louis Armstrong.

People magazine, July 31, 1989

Lady Day - The Many Faces of Billie Holiday

Every jazz buff should be grateful to a producer like Toby Byron for making available Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday. I’d recommend it for any basic jazz video library along with Byron’s joyous earlier production, Satchmo.

Chip Deffaa, New York Post, Saturday, August 31, 1991

Sarah Vaughan - The Divine One

This riveting hour shows just how Vaughan evolved, visually and vocally; it will leave the viewer with a mixture of joy that this wondrous memento exists and sorrow at the loss of which it reminds us.

Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times, Monday, July 29, 1991

Ray Charles - The Genius of Soul

Like the man it profiles, Ray Charles: The Genius of Soul has a voice that’s distinctive, emotional and impressively truthful.

David Bianculli, New York Post, Friday, January 3, 1992

Story of Jazz

The Story of Jazz is a superb 90-minute history from the 1830s through the 1980s.

Peter M. Nichols, New York Times, March 18, 1994

Bluesland - A Portrait In American Music

Bluesland, a companion to the book, the film is a wonderful, essential and totally accessible history of the blues—as entertaining as it is educational.

Of course, no 90-minutes video will provide a proper history of anything (except maybe the career of Vanilla Ice), yet Bluesland is remarkable for its use of rare performance footage of such pioneers as Son House, Bukka White, Sonny Boy Williamson, Roosevelt Sykes, Lonnie Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and T-Bone Walker. To watch them perform, to hear them play makes Bluesland as essential as it is thrilling.

Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer, 1994

The Kennedy Center Presents: A Tribute To Muddy Waters - King of The Blues

Performance footage is interspersed with biographical segments, live renditions of Waters classics and brief taped reflections from such rock acolytes as Gregg Allman, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Peter Wolf and other that help elucidate Waters’ impact on all of popular music.