As a music journalist (and a Chaiflicks subscriber) I was thrilled to see that they got the rights to stream the documentary “It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story”. When I first saw it announced, I thought I had seen it already in 2018 but, after looking closer I saw that I had seen a documentary “Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes” by a Swiss film director (Sophie Huber). This one is different. It was produced in GERMANY (home of both Alfred Lion – the label owner – and his lifetime friend, photographer Frederick Wolfe) and it concentrates on the legendary musicians who are interviewed. Both films were made in 2018.
There are DVDs of the “Schwing” doc for sale on Amazon but they are all in PAL format for Europe so you can’t play in US. And ONLY Chaiflicks is streaming it.

If you are a modern jazz fan this is a must to see. There is one small quirk here (but small). Even though 90% of the film is in English, there are some short (3 minutes at most) section in German with no English subtitles. (Now when early interviews with Lion are presented, he is speaking English but there are English subtitles to make it clear. Again, a minor annoyance.

A HUGE thank you to Chaiflicks for getting the sole streaming rights and making it available.
Steve Ramm