Smith, James O. – Organist, USA. Ein Jazz-Organist in Amerika

Jazz and its milieu. Klaus Wildenhahn films the Jimmy Smith Trio in New York. With the addition of a white guitarist, Kenny Burrell, the band is in the studio recording the Rolling Stones current hit “Satisfaction”, as a tribute to the successful British Beat musicians, who were themselves inspired by blues and jazz. The camera is trained on the instruments and the musicians’ faces and follows the reasoning during discussions, which involve talk of the social status of black musicians in the US. Wildenhahn covers his protagonist like cinematographers Albert Maysles and Richard Leacock did John F. Kennedy in Primary (1960). He follows him on stage and into his private life, bringing both jazz and Direct Cinema to Germany.