Jazz breaking news: Silent Film About The Early Life of Louis Armstrong To Be Screened With Full Live Orchestra Performing At London Jazz Festival Shows

The film will premiere during the London Jazz Festival on 13 November at two shows in the Barbican performed live by piano virtuoso Cecile Licad, known for her interpretation of the music of Chopin, and an eight-piece ensemble led by trombonist Wycliffe Gordon who was awarded the accolade of Jazz Journalists Association trombonist of the year earlier this year in New York.

Licad in the film performs the music of pre-jazz 19th century American Chopin-inspired composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, while Wynton and his musicians perform jazz carefully composed to reflect the period detail of the film. Louis was written and directed by Dan Pritzker who was in London yesterday for an advance screening of the film ahead of the premiere.

Pritzker began shooting in 2007 working also on another film currently in post- production entitled Bolden! expected next year. He explained to Jazzwise that Louis was completed ahead of the publication of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout published in the spring of last year, referring instead to the much earlier Gary Giddins book Satchmo from 1988. Pritzker spoke of the silent films of Charlie Chaplin as one of the inspirations for the story which is set in the Storyville brothel district of New Orleans, the city where jazz began. Appropriately the film opens with the birth of a child.

Chaplin directly (in The Great Dictator) is a model for the character of Judge Perry (played by Jackie Earle Haley) who has fathered a child by a prostitute and who runs for governor. But while the film is set in the early history of jazz there are more contemporary references too, for instance in the "Hieronymous Chad" spin doctor character who is involved in one scene in the machinations to have Perry elected, that recalls the infamous Florida “hanging chads” controversy in 2000.

Louis Armstrong, as a six year-old, is played by Anthony Coleman and the film charts the future trumpet icon’s life as a young boy in the district delivering coal, his observing of the world he finds himself in and ultimately his search for a teacher to further his musical ambitions. The teacher’s part is played by none other than Wynton’s brother, the trombonist, bandleader and producer Delfeayo Marsalis, who Pritzker says was also very involved in the film. Wynton Marsalis' score combines period musical flavour plus key episodes inspired by later music, for instance by Oscar Peterson’s ‘Night Train’, or interspersed with music by Ellington (‘Black And Tan Fantasy’), and Charles Mingus. – Stephen Graham

Look out for a feature on the film written by Selwyn Harris to be published in the November print issue of Jazzwise. For more about the Barbican concerts go to www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk