thE FILM

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The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit chronicles the defining impact of Detroit’s innovative and influential jazz legacy and the iconic city that produced it. Inspired by Mark Stryker’s 2019 book, Jazz from Detroit, the award-winning, 90-minute documentary weaves a compelling historical and cultural tapestry through the 20th and 21st centuries. Set within Detroit’s dramatic rise and fall as an industrial power and the struggles and triumphs of its creative and resilient African American community, the film connects the dots between the city’s history and Black musical excellence.

From legends like Elvin Jones, Yusef Lateef, and Ron Carter to today’s stars like Karriem Riggins, Kenny Garrett, and Regina Carter, you can’t tell the history of jazz without telling the history of jazz from Detroit. Scores of world-class jazz musicians have rolled off Detroit’s assembly line—nurtured by both a profound legacy of mentors including Barry Harris, Marcus Belgrave, and Rodney Whitaker, and the soulfulness of a great American city that never quits.

Among the musicians, historians, and writers featured in the film are: Geri Allen, Terence Blanchard, George Bohanon, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Regina Carter, James Carter, Barry Harris, Marion Hayden, Louis Hayes, Robert Hurst III, Hank Jones, Elvin Jones, Thad Jones, Sheila Jordan, Yusef Lateef, Christian McBride, Charles McPherson, Pat Metheny, Johnny O’Neal, Endea Owens, Karriem Riggins, Rodney Whitaker, Don Was, David Maraniss, Herb Boyd, Jamon Jordan, Marsha Music, and many others.

Directed by Daniel Loewenthal, 90 minutes, Magic Circle Productions (c. 2025)

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