Pick of the Week: A Jazzman's Blues - Review by Yvette Huddleston

Set in the Deep South of America, the film opens in 1987. We watch as an elderly black woman makes a long walk into town, where she enters the office of a local white politician to deliver to him a bundle of yellowing letters and to report a murder that was committed forty years ago. She then leaves. Curious, the politician begins reading the letters – and the rest of the story unfolds in flashback.

In rural Georgia in 1940 teenagers Bayou (Joshua Boone) and Leanne (Solea Pfeiffer) begin a tentative relationship. Both have complex family lives – his mother adores him but his father is a bully and his brother Willie Earl (Austin Scott) resents him; she lives with her abusive grandfather. They find solace in each other’s company and have a lovely, sweet and genuine connection, spending hours talking, walking and laughing. All in secret. It leads to a marriage proposal. Leanne, like her absent mother, is passing as white and when her mother discovers the relationship, she whisks her away to live in the North. Meanwhile Bayou’s father and brother have disappeared to Chicago to try and make it as jazz musicians.

With Leanne gone, Bayou gets on with his life, enlists in the army and comes home after being injured. In the meantime, his mother, a fine singer, has set up a bar and music venue and Bayou helps her out tending bar and occasionally joining her to sing. He has a fine singing voice and when his trumpeter brother turns up again, this time with his agent Ira (Ryan Eggold) in tow, life takes a positive turn for Bayou. Ira is impressed by his singing – something which further fuels Willie Earl’s resentment. Their visit coincides with Leanne’s return to the town as the wife of a wealthy white man – and after a passionate encounter, Bayou is forced to flee for his life to Chicago with Ira and Willie Earl.

In Chicago Bayou becomes a successful jazz singer in one of the city’s top night clubs – but he never stops thinking about, or writing letters to, Leanne and trying to get back to her. Eventually it looks like there might be a chance for them… A beautiful, engaging, thought-provoking and at times heart-breaking drama with a well-crafted script, fine performances and some wonderful musical numbers.