Music Mondays: La La Land saves Jazz! Or not! Or maybe jazz saves La La Land?

The newish hit movie La La Land is creating quite the tempest in a teapot in the jazz world these days, and even a few ripples of jazz-related commentary out side of it. The prospects for an awards bonanza are quite strong, starting with the recent Golden Globes and perhaps continuing to the Oscars. Which would be quite the feat for a musical/romantic comedy.

Personally, I haven't seen the movie yet and possibly never will. My record for jazz flicks is inconsistent to say the least. I saw the recent Chet Baker biopic but not the Miles Davis one or even the La La Land director's previous jazzy outing, Whiplash. (Of the ones I've not seen, the Don Cheadle Miles Davis is the one I most want to catch up to.)

What I have been doing is reading an awful lot about La La Land, especially as relates to the state of modern jazz.

So I thought I'd share some of that reading. Enjoy!

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You should watch Whiplash. It's the best movie of the past 20 years.

I think the most appropriate thing you can say about La La Land (which I think is very good, but not great) based on the links you have, is that it's the movie that people are most likely to project their own opinions/biases/motivations onto.

By Chris Funkhouser (not verified) on 18 Jan 2017 #permalink