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Thunder Soul AKA Jamie Foxx Presents Thunder Soul
R1 - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (4th August 2015). |
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The Film
 “Thunder Soul” is a documentary on Mr. Conrad O. Johnson and the Kashmere Stage Band. Johnson started in music education in 1941 at the age of 30, as the music teacher at Kashmere High School in Houston, Texas. He was a black music instructor at a predominantly black high school, and was also the jazz band conductor. In the early 1970’s the high school kids were getting a little sick and tired of the “old” sounding jazz tunes they had to practice and play for their competitions. Instead, the kids were into the rising funk sounds of Parliament, Sly Stone, Earth, Wind and Fire, James Brown, and The Bar-Kays, and sometimes the kids would jam a little funk into their rehearsals. The teacher Mr. Johnson, who was called “Prof” by everyone, noticed that was what was moving and inspiring the students. Prof then started rearranging the Jazz standards with funk and soul, writing original funk arrangements, and also throwing in a few dance moves for the students while playing. The Kashmere Stage Band started to become quite a force in the high school music competition circuit, not just with an original sound and original look, but also winning numerous awards from various competitions. Prof retired from teaching in 1978, after a long 37 year career. But when the Kashmere Stage Band was slated to perform at the Mobile, Alabama National Jazz Competition, it was to change things even further. At the time, George Wallace was the governor of Alabama, the man who claimed “Segregation Forever” during speeches. The Kashmere Stage Band was the only black group to be competing. Surprising everyone, they won the national title. With the band’s incredible growing stride, the band is then invited to play in Europe and in Japan, started being interviewed on local television and radio. Cut to years later to the late 1990’s, when record collector and future Stones Throw Records managing director Eothen “Egon” Alapatt found a record of The Kashmere Stage Band while crate digging. High school band records are a staple of flea markets and dollar bins of record stores, and as he states, 99 out of 100 high school band records are utterly terrible. But when he heard the Kashmere Stage Band record, he couldn’t believe his ears. The music was as good, or possibly even better than many of the major bands of the 1970’s. Alapatt got in touch with the retired Prof in 1999 and talked about the possibility of remastering and reissuing the high school band’s music to a new audience. Also in 1999, DJ Shadow used a sample of their 1973 song “Kashmere” in the track “Holy Calamity (Bear Witness)” on the first album by Handsome Boy Modeling School. And in the world of sampling, whatever DJ Shadow used, everyone had to find that original record. In 2006, the Stones Throw Records offshoot label Now-Again Records issued a compilation album by The Kashmere Stage Band: “Texas Thunder Soul: 1968-1974”, a 2-CD set and 3-LP set of their recordings both in studio and live competition performances. The album surprisingly peaked on the Amazon sales chart at number 3, mostly through word of mouth. In 2008, 30 of the former high school kids, who were then all in their 50’s, decided to pay tribute to Prof on the 30th anniversary of his retirement, by reuniting the band and holding a special concert for him at Kashmere High School. Flying everyone from all over the country and even one member from Portugal, the 30 members jammed together for the first time in over 35 years. A little rusty and a bit off key at first, the alumni members were all doing it for the greatest teacher in their lives. But while rehearsing for the tribute, the 92-year old Prof has a mild heart attack and is taken to the hospital, which causes serious distress to the band members… Will Prof live to see his former students kick it on stage again? “Thunder Soul” almost seems too good to be true. Unlike fictional movies of teachers and their students such as “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, “To Sir, With Love”, or “Blackboard Jungle”, there was no friction between students and teacher, no pathos, no conflict, no hard drama. Everyone loved Prof as a teacher and as a person. It was almost like a fairy tale that you just wouldn’t believe it if it were to be made as a fictional film. The dramatic angle comes from the reunion. Seeing and hearing what the former students feel about how Prof changed their lives, made them fall in love with music and performance are incredibly touching. The interviews with DJ Shadow, Alapatt and music historians show a genuine love for the music which was both equally forgotten about and unknown for 30 years. Director Mark Landsman was there to document the reunion of the band, and was able to interview Prof at the age of 92. Using high school year book photos with subtle animation, interviews with individual band members, footage from the 1973 documentary film “Wattstax”, and also being lucky enough to find archival footage of the band in the 1970’s and footage of Alapatt visiting Prof in 1999, Landsman crafted together along with editor Claire Didier a story that seems too good to be true. But it actually is! The film was completed in 2010 and screened at various festivals. One particular fan of the film was Jamie Foxx, who became an executive producer and attached his name to help with the distribution, and also narrated the theatrical trailer. Unfortunately, the film never found a large audience and like the original records, faded toward obscurity. As of this writing, it still has less than 400 votes by users on IMDB, and remains one of the least seen movies that has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Note: This is a region 1 NTSC DVD and can only be played back on region 1 compatible players.
Video
The film is presented in the ratio of 1.78:1 in anamorphic widescreen in the NTSC standard. The 2008 footage is shot on digital, so everything looks quite clean and clear. The vintage footage from varied sources look good or bad depending on which source. The 1974 footage of Prof and the band looks surprisingly great, coming from the original film camera negative. The “Wattstax” footage looks like it was takes straight from the DVD. Some of the vintage footage looks particularly weak, but actually there was some footage that was newly shot but processed to look vintage. Please listen to the audio commentary for more information on that. Some of the vintage footage is presented in the 1.33:1 ratio, which is windowboxed in the 1.78:1 frame.
Audio
The sound is offered in English Dolby Digital 5.1. The music sounds absolutely incredible, so play it loud and proud. There are optional English HoH and Spanish subtitles for the main feature.
Extras
The extras are as follows: Audio commentary with director/producer Mark Landsman and film editor Claire Didier The two talk about how the film came together, the luck that they had finding the vintage footage, how it was hard holding back tears at quite a few moments, and also how they used some technology to make some new footage look like vintage footage. They also talk about how they were reluctant to use the DJ Shadow interview and the Cut Chemist cameo (only his hands appear!) at a point, since they wanted to focus more on the band, rather than the sampling and hip hop. But gladly was kept in. Never-Before Seen Footage from "Prof & The Band" Documentary (1974) (13:31) In 1974, Charles Porter, the first African-American television reporter in Houston shot footage for a possible news report and documentary on Prof and The Kashmere Stage Band. He shot footage of the band performing as well as interview material with Prof, which then sat on the shelf for 35 years. Some of the footage is seen in the final movie, but presented here is more from the 1974 footage. In 1.33:1 Theatrical Trailer (2:27) The trailer is narrated by Jamie Foxx. In non-anamorphic 1.78:1 Bonus Trailers - "The Music Never Stopped" (2:35), "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" (3:38), "Buena Vista Social Club" (1:44), "The Cove" (2:21), Epix promo (1:59) These are played at start-up or from the bonus features menu. In anamorphic widescreen or non-anamorphic widescreen, depending on the trailer Although I wish there could have been bonus performances from the band (now or then), either in audio or video form, there is none on this disc...
Overall
It’s almost a crime that “Thunder Soul” went unnoticed both theatrically and on DVD. Hopefully it will be rediscovered just like the original records were. Absolutely a must-see music documentary.
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