Plot
Coleman Buckmaster (Harvey Keitel), also known as "the Golden Ear", is a producer extraordinaire for A-Chord Records. In the midst of working slavishly to complete the debut album of "the Group" (Earth, Wind & Fire), Buckmaster is forced to put their project on the back-burner in favor of a new signing to A-Chord, "the Pages," Velour (Cynthia Bostick), Gary (Jimmy Boyd) and Franklin (Bert Parks). According to label head Carlton James (Ed Nelson), the Pages represent good, old-fashioned, wholesome family values. According to Buckmaster, they represent everything wrong with the music business: a soulless pastiche of cheese-on-white-bread, and he wants nothing to do with them. However, due to his contract, he is forced to turn the flat song of their demo, "Joy, Joy, Joy" into a workable hit. In the meantime, he ends up in a relationship with Velour, seemingly also against his will, but he is able to use the relationship to his and the Group's advantage, then to break the news of a makeshift marriage to Velour, updated her part of the music contract, the Pages. A twist where everybody wins.
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.
Harvey Keitel is an American actor known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with director Martin Scorsese, starring in six of his films: Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and The Irishman (2019).
Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that the bebop and modal jazz that had been played before them was too limiting, and became preoccupied with creating something new. The term "free jazz" was drawn from the 1960 Ornette Coleman recording Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. Europeans tend to favor the term "free improvisation". Others have used "modern jazz", "creative music", and "art music".
Earth, Wind & Fire is an American band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1969. Their music spans multiple genres, including jazz, R&B, soul, funk, disco, pop, Latin and Afro-pop. They are among the best-selling bands of all time, with sales of over 90 million records worldwide.
Killing Joke are an English rock band formed in Notting Hill, London, in 1979 by Jaz Coleman, Paul Ferguson (drums), Geordie Walker (guitar) and Youth (bass).
Saturn 3 is a 1980 British science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Donen, and starring Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel. The screenplay was written by Martin Amis, from a story by John Barry. Though a British production, made by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment and shot at Shepperton Studios, the film has an American cast and director.
Maurice White was an American musician, best known as the founder, leader, main songwriter and chief producer of the band Earth, Wind & Fire, also serving as the band's co-lead singer with Philip Bailey.
Verdine Adams White is an American musician, best known as a founding member and bassist for the band Earth, Wind & Fire. White was placed at No. 19 on Rolling Stone's list of The 50 Greatest Bassists of All Time.
On the Corner is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis. It was recorded in June and July 1972 and released on October 11 of that year by Columbia Records. The album continued Davis' exploration of jazz fusion, and explicitly drew on the influence of funk musicians Sly Stone and James Brown, the experimental music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, the free jazz of Ornette Coleman, and the work of collaborator Paul Buckmaster.
That's the Way of the World is the sixth studio album by American band Earth, Wind & Fire, released on March 3, 1975, by Columbia Records. This was also the soundtrack for a 1975 motion picture of the same name. The album rose to No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and Top Soul Albums charts. That's the Way of the World has also been certified Triple Platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA.
Paul John Buckmaster was a British cellist, arranger, conductor and composer, with a career spanning five decades.
Gratitude is a double live album by American band Earth, Wind & Fire, issued in November 1975 by Columbia Records. The album spent six weeks atop the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart and three weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart. Gratitude has also been certified Triple Platinum in the US by the RIAA.
Shawn Phillips is an American singer-songwriter and musician, primarily influential in the 1960s and 1970s. His work is rooted in folk rock but straddles other genres, including jazz fusion and funk. Phillips has recorded twenty-eight albums and worked with musicians including Donovan, Paul Buckmaster, J. Peter Robinson, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bernie Taupin, Tim Hardin, Manos Hatzidakis and many others.
"After the Love Has Gone" is a song by Earth, Wind & Fire, released in 1979 as the second single from their ninth studio album I Am on ARC/Columbia Records. The song reached No. 2 on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart, No. 3 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart. "After the Love Has Gone" was certified gold in the US by the RIAA and silver in the UK by the BPI.
"Subterraneans" is a song by David Bowie, the closing track of his 1977 album Low. As with most of Side 2, "Subterraneans" is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song's end.
Sig Shore was an American film director and producer. His 1972 film Super Fly is considered one of the first blaxploitation films.
"September" is a song by the American band Earth, Wind & Fire released as a single on November 18, 1978, by ARC/Columbia Records. The song was written by Allee Willis and Maurice White, based on a music sequence developed by guitarist Al McKay. Initially included as a track for The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1, "September" was very successful commercially and reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart, No. 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart. The song remains a staple of the band's body of work and has been sampled, covered, remixed, and re-recorded numerous times.
New Birth is an American funk and R&B group. It was originally conceived in Detroit, Michigan, by former Motown songwriter/producer Vernon Bullock and co-founded in Louisville, Kentucky, by him with former singer and Motown songwriter/producer Harvey Fuqua and musicians Tony Churchill, James Baker, Robin Russell, Austin Lander, Robert "Lurch" Jackson, Leroy Taylor, Charlie Hearndon, Bruce Marshall and Nathaniel "Nebs" Neblett (1946–2016).
Donald Myrick was an American saxophonist. A member of the Phenix Horns, he was best known for his work with Earth, Wind & Fire and Phil Collins.
Ralph Randolph Johnson is an American singer, songwriter, musician and producer. Johnson is a member and percussionist of the funk/soul/disco band Earth, Wind & Fire.
