Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues

Some stunningly crisp archive footage, particularly of old American chat and variety TV shows, combines with previously unheard personal recordings to create this rounded portrait of one of jazz’s most influential players. The film is sensitive to the difficult position Armstrong occupied in American popular culture, representing as he did a black artist who was sometimes seen as a safe pair of hands by white audiences and promoters, but who was also acutely aware of his heritage and was willing to undertake the risks involved in becoming a civil rights campaigner. A complex man is vividly drawn.