Jazz a la Mode Film Series

Join us for great jazz documentaries.  Next in the series is the area premiere of "Chick Webb: The Savoy King." Each evening features live music, the film and an intro and Q&A session by WFCR's Jazz a la Mode host, Tom Reney. All shows begin at 7pm. Tickets available at amherstcinema.org. Presented in collaboration with The UMass FAC and Amherst Cinema.

Monday, April 1

The Savoy King

Born poor in Baltimore, Chick Webb broke his back as a boy and faced life as hunchback dwarf afflicted with Spinal Tuberculosis. Someone suggested drumming as a kind of physical therapy, and Webb found his calling:

running off to New York at only 16, he built the hottest jazz orchestra in America, whose home base was Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, one of the rare places in America where Blacks and Whites could socialize together. The honor roll of artists discovered and mentored by Webb is extraordinary, but perhaps no star shines brighter than that of Ella Fitzgerald. Featuring interviews with those who knew or played with Webb, great period footage, as well as a firm sense of social and cultural history, THE SAVOY KING is a meditation on the transformative power of art as well as a monument to a great American artist.

Director Jeff Kaufman.  90 mins, NR.

Tickets are available online www.amherstcinema.org or at the Amherst Cinema box office.

Presented in collaboration with New England Public Radio and Amherst Cinema.