Twelve years after his groundbreaking Apollo performance, 10 years after the TAMI Show, the Godfather of Soul continues to do it to death in 1974, headlining the Zaire '74 Music Festival, conceived as an adjunct to the "Rumble In The Jungle" Ali-Foreman rematch in that country. The fight had to wait several weeks because Foreman got a cut above his eye while sparring, but the concert couldn't wait. Its story is told in a very cool documentary, Soul Power, out now on DVD and Blu-ray disc from Eureka!/Masters of Cinema. The excellent disc represents, among other things, a broadening of the MOC mission, and is the subject of today's Foreign DVD Report, at The Auteurs'.
I saw this as my first film at TIFF Last year and I literally bounced out of the theatre to James Brown saying “When you’re walking down the street then you can say ‘Damn right I’m somebody!'”. Man, I can only imagine how empowering it must’ve been for black youth in the mid-70s to hear Ali and Brown at their razor sharp best.
The music is freaking amazing. Who knew The Crusaders could burn the place down? And Miriam Makeba – not only does this woman exude class (when she quietly talks about not making a big deal of some lineup shuffling as long as it’s in the best interests of the crowd) and confidence, but my God can she sing…Her rendition of “The Click Song” is a truly uplifting moment.
And James bookends it with awe-inspiring stuff. I can’t wait to see this again and I may actually seek out that Masters Of Cinema release.
Any special features? Any additional musical performances? ‘Cause that would seal the deal…
There’s a EPK-ish interview with the director, and about 30 minutes worth of additional perfs.
This sounds truly excellent. And this seals the deal: “[Hinte] wasn’t going to seek out any of the participants for contemporary retrospective interviews.” I’ve almost started avoiding all music documentaries, because so many of them will show you 15 seconds of amazing vintage footage and then cut to a bland sound bite from the performer or a friend, associate, or hanger-on (I think of this as the PBS style, but see it everywhere).
conceived as an adjunct to the “Rumble In The Jungle” Ali-Foreman rematch in that country.
This was the only Ali-Foreman fight. Not a rematch and a rematch was never held.