Maxine Sullivan: Love to Be In Love is
a long-overdue film portrait of the once famous, and now,
largely forgotten jazz vocalist Maxine Sullivan. Sullivan
won fame in the 1930s with swing renditions of traditional
songs like "Loch Lomond" and "Annie Laurie."
By the late 1930s she became the foremost black, female
vocalist in America, inspiring young musicians like Ella Fitzgerald.
Film footage, vintage photographs, reminiscences by other
jazz luminaries, as well as Sullivan's wonderfully seductive
music are used to tell her story.
Though largely absent from the jazz scene in the 1950s,
she returned to perform in the late 1960s; at one point turning
out an album every three months. She never retired and continued
to work till her death in 1987.
"Love to be in Love" made its theatrical premiere
at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, and the Film
Forum, New York.
Selected Festivals, Awards, and TV Broadcasts
- Melbourne Film Festival
- Wellington International Film Festival
- New York JVC Jazz Festival
- American Film and Video Festival (Honorable Mention)
- Toronto Jazz Film Festival
- Sinking Creek Film Festival (Honorable Mention)
- Broadcast in France, Britain, Germany and Yugoslavia
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