Duke Ellington at the Côte d'Azur with Ella Fitzgerald and Joan Miro
Duke Ellington at the Côte d'Azur with Ella Fitzgerald and Joan Miro
| 01 May 1966 (USA)
Duke Ellington at the Côte d'Azur with Ella Fitzgerald and Joan Miro Trailers

The rather dusty black-and-white footage, dating from the summer of 1966, opens with bikinis, beach umbrellas and Foster Grant-shaded sophisticates strolling La Croisette. The scene then shifts to a surprisingly drab hotel suite, where Duke Ellington explains that, though his career had taken him to all corners of the globe, this is his first visit to the French Riviera. Ellington is there, with Ella Fitzgerald, for the Festival International de Jazz at Juan-les-Pins, but, as he enthuses in his introduction, he’s equally eager to indulge his love of modern art with up-close observation of works by Picasso, Calder, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró. As any fan of Ellington and/or Fitzgerald is well aware, an edited version of their four-night Côte d’Azur appearance was released in ’66 as a two-record set. That version found its way onto CD in 1997. A year later, a massive, eight-disc compendium served up the Duke and Ella sessions in their entirety.

Reviews
CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.