Five-star 鈥楽ummer of Soul鈥� captures the music, and unity, of 1969 Harlem festival
The Monitor鈥檚 film critic gives five stars to 鈥淪ummer of Soul,鈥� a new documentary from Questlove about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival in New York.
The Monitor鈥檚 film critic gives five stars to 鈥淪ummer of Soul,鈥� a new documentary from Questlove about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival in New York.
Over six weekends in the summer of 1969, the Mount Morris Park in New York鈥檚 Harlem neighborhood聽was thronged with over 300,000 jubilant attendees as they heard some of the greatest Black and Latino performers of the day at the peak of their musical powers. The event was put on by the Harlem Cultural Festival and unofficially dubbed 鈥渢he Black Woodstock,鈥� referencing that other music festival, some 110 miles upstate, which it overlapped.
So why, unlike Woodstock, was this event subsequently all but lost to history? The new documentary 鈥淪ummer of Soul鈥� 鈥� directed by Ahmir 鈥淨uestlove鈥� Thompson,聽the extraordinarily poly-talented author and co-founder of hip-hop band The Roots聽鈥� is a reclamation project of major cultural significance.聽
The backstory is that over 40 hours of the Harlem concert were filmed by the TV producer Hal Tulchin, who wanted to fashion the footage into a feature for television and was turned down by all the major networks. When he died in 2017, the footage had been sitting in his basement for nearly 50 years. Except for some portions shown in 1969 on the local New York public television station, nothing of the filmed concert has been available for audiences to view until now.
The movie, edited by Joshua Pearson, should take its rightful place among such classic live performance documentaries as 鈥淲oodstock,鈥� 鈥淎mazing Grace,鈥� 鈥淢onterey Pop,鈥� 鈥淕ospel,鈥� 鈥淭.A.M.I. Show,鈥� and 鈥淲attstax.鈥�
What differentiates it from many of those movies is the extent to which Thompson situates the performances in a larger social context. (The film鈥檚 subtitle is 鈥�... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised,鈥� an allusion to the 1960s Black Power slogan and Gil Scott-Heron song.) The summer of 1969, a year after the civil unrest in Harlem following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., is convincingly posited as a turning point in an era when Black style 鈥� personal, political, and musical 鈥� was becoming more forthrightly pronounced and prideful.
The party atmosphere in the park was about much more than summer fun. Thompson interviews several of the people who were in the audience for the event, and what we repeatedly hear from them is how unifying it felt to be there. Says one attendee, 鈥淲e needed to feel like family.鈥� Says another, 鈥淭hat concert was like a rose coming through cement.鈥�
And what a concert it was! Each weekend was devoted to a different type of music 鈥� gospel, pop, rock, R&B, blues, Afro/Latin jazz 鈥� but Thompson overlaps the categories into a continuous stream of performance. The artists share the same almost beatific look: They know they are in the right place at the right time. B.B. King belts out 鈥淲hy I Sing the Blues鈥�; the Edwin Hawkins Singers transport the crowd with 鈥淥h Happy Day鈥�; 19-year-old Stevie Wonder knocks out an explosive drum solo; David Ruffin, who had recently left The Temptations, offers up a mellifluous version of 鈥淢y Girl.鈥� Nina Simone rasps out the incendiary 鈥淏acklash Blues.鈥� The South African Hugh Masekela, and the Latin all-stars Ray Barretto and Mongo Santamaria, highlight the festival鈥檚 cultural range.
Gladys Knight, interviewed in the present, talks about how deeply good it felt for her (and the choreographically incomparable Pips) to be up on that stage. Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo of The 5th Dimension, unfairly branded at the time as 鈥渢he Black group with the white sound,鈥� recount their fears of being rejected by the Harlem crowd. They needn鈥檛 have worried. Their number 鈥淟et the Sunshine In鈥� is one of the film鈥檚 high points. So is the appearance of Sly and the Family Stone, doing 鈥淚 Want to Take You Higher鈥� and 鈥淓veryday People.鈥� With a white drummer and a female trumpeter, that group, heartily embraced, represented something new.
My favorite moment in the film comes when Mavis Staples joins with Mahalia Jackson in singing 鈥淭ake My Hand, Precious Lord,鈥� Dr. King鈥檚 favorite gospel song. What these two dynamos express goes beyond elation. It鈥檚 more like transcendence. This time capsule of a movie is timeless.
Peter Rainer is the Monitor鈥檚 film critic. 鈥淪ummer of Soul鈥� (rated PG-13) opens in theaters and is available on Hulu on July 2.