The New Yorker called it “one of the greatest movies about jazz” – and what a feat, considering it was Larry Clark’s UCLA thesis film. Soundtracked by Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Eric Dolphy, Clark’s first feature follows a jazz musician struggling to stay true to the art after a stint in prison for the killing of a white gangster. Refusing to work in affiliated mobsters’ clubs, he instead pursues his grandfather, also a jazz musician and his mentor. The film will be preceded by Charles Burnett’s 1995 short, “When It Rains,” a jazz-infused portrait of a musician who helps a mother evicted on New Year’s Day. – Lina Fisher
