The Music Never Dies

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Aficionados of jazz and blues have come to learn how these musical art forms, born in 20th century America, were responsible not just for the term ‘rock n’ roll,’ but also its signature sounds that captivated such a massive segment of late-century popular music. Our culture has all but deified the luminaries of the latter musical style.

Presently, all the massive names have released a flood of widely broadcast interviews, published biographies and touched the public via so many other far-reaching channels that their stories are well on track to live on. Meanwhile, the names in jazz and blues that played alongside them, that produced, wrote and gave life to their work musically – in so many cases, their stories are on the way to falling by the wayside. This situation may be reconciled for the ages with the upcoming documentary film, “The Music Never Dies”.

When you watch movies like 20 Feet from Stardom, the doc about the backup singers of a handful of massive international pop and rock names, you realize that these people were onboard for all of these iconic multi-year tours and all of these industry-changing albums and not only did they contribute to the sounds the fans have embedded in their brains, they have their own experiences of those times that lend the music much of the drama that makes it so powerful.

In “The Music Never Dies”, the producers want to convey a sense of the how the struggle, pain, heartbreak and oppression undergone by some true greats of the jazz world can be heard as much through jazz as it can in the chart-topping rock n’ roll music that several of our film’s featured musicians helped make famous.

The film will highlight the stories of a number of New Orleans and New York-based musicians will be told as the cameras take a peek into their lives spent living gig to gig, and also follow them backstage as they play live, in clubs, and in concert venues on tour. With help from award-winning, Harlem-based director and jazz journalist Edward Hillel, the production team will resume shooting in autumn 2014, starting from the enduring heart of the art form, New Orleans.

Davell Crawford, possibly the 21st century’s most notable local of the Big Easy’s jazz scene, has been enlisted to select a group of the musicians that will be interviewed on a multi-city tour of Europe that will bring them in front of audiences who may have grown up listening to their rock or even their jazz music, but who would otherwise never have had a glimpse of their faces, let alone ever hear their names.

The producers have been following the wave of the crowdfunding bug as its grown during these last five years, and watching how many thousands of filmmaking teams have opened the doors to their project by way of this fundraising method. For this reason the producers have launched a crowdfunding campaign on the IndieGoGo platform to raise a portion of our funding from the international jazz-loving audience. As a perk for backers that contribute are reward packages with the completed film on offer, limited edition photographs taken of the film in progress, as well as an album of some of the live audio recordings that will be drawn from the tour…and for rabid aficionados of the craft, they are offering a few limited spots to meet the band in New Orleans as well as opportunities to join the crew on the road for several dates of the tour.

We at Jazz in Europe support the making of this film and the importance documenting these dynamic stories, and contributions to their art form’s unique history. We urge you to go to the Indiegogo page and help keep the music alive.

Click here to support the project

More Information about “The Music Never Dies” can be found at their website.

Last modified: July 15, 2018