BENNY CARTER: SYMPHONY IN RIFFS

For lovers of jazz, big band, and 20th-century American music, Benny Carter needs no introduction; rather, celebration. Harrison Engle traces the long- and continuing-career of “The King” from the Apollo Theater in the 1920s, to Europe in the'30s, to Hollywood and beyond. (Among his many credits, Carter was an artist in-residence at Baldwin Wallace in 1970.) Archival footage intercuts with Carter today, a witty and immensely likeable presence on and off stage. In a rare display of rancor, Carter remarks that many recent films depict doomed, drugged out Black jazzmen; he wants to see the human spirit triumph through music. Harrison Engle grants that wish.