‘Summer of Soul’ Is History Lesson Wrapped In A Concert Film Full Of Jaw Dropping Performances

Since its release earlier this summer, Summer of Soul has been called “one of the year’s best films” and “one of the best concert movies of all time.” Directed by musician Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, it chronicles the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of free outdoor concerts that occurred in the summer of 1969 in Mount Morris Park, now known as Marcus Garvey Park, on 5th Ave. between 120th and 124th Streets in Uptown Manhattan. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past January, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the US Documentary Competition. This was followed by a limited theatrical release in June and it is currently available for streaming on Hulu.

The Harlem Cultural Festival is often referred to as “the Black Woodstock”; however that does it a disservice, reducing its importance by comparison. Woodstock was commercial in intent, occurring over three days in August ‘69, featuring the cream of the crop of the rock counterculture, its artists and audience predominantly white. The >Harlem Cultural Festival spanned nearly the entire summer and drew from the entirety of black musical expression, featuring stars of Motown, blues singers, gospel choirs, jazz musicians and psychedelic soul. The audience was black and multi-generational. Harlem native Musa Jackson was 4 years old when he attended the concerts and paints a picture of them that is as much church picnic as pop concert.

Black America was at a crossroads in the late ’60s. White America’s violent reaction to the Civil Rights movement included church bombings and political assassinations while the Vietnam War and the growing heroin epidemic took their toll on black communities around the country. Amidst calls for self-defense and self-determination, a new sense of black pride took root which refused to water itself down for mainstream (IE: white) acceptance. “‘69 was the pivotal year when the negro died and Black was born,” says the Reverand Al Sharpton.

The Harlem Cultural Festival  was the brainchild of Tony Lawrence, a singer and promoter equally at home schmoozing politicians as performers. The riots of 1968 were still fresh in the minds of the authorities but Lawrence secured the support of then-Mayor John Lindsay and the sponsorship of Maxwell House coffee. Local Black Panthers chapters helped with security and the concerts occurred over 6 consecutive weekends, from June 24 to Aug. 25, 1969.

Much of the live footage featured in the film is jaw-droppingly great. Highlights include B.B. King and the Fifth Dimension sounding funkier than you’ve ever heard them, former Temptations singer David Ruffin in a performance that hints at what should have been one of the greatest careers in R&B, Stevie Wonder displaying his triple threat virtuosity on vocals, keyboards and drums and Sly & The Family Stone bringing Haight-Ashbury to Harlem and leaving the crowd literally screaming for more. The most powerful moment is when Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson pay tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and perform his favorite gospel song. It will move you to tears.

Mixed in with the performances are interviews with journalists, activists and those who attended the concerts and performed at them. Unfortunately, these interviews are often cut to mid-performance or audio of them talking is laid over the music bed. While their insights give a greater context to the importance of the Harlem Cultural Festival, they also undermine the film’s greatest asset; the music. When a voiceover pops up halfway through Nina Simone’s blistering “Backlash Blues,” it’s almost too much to bear. We don’t need someone explaining her greatness to us in that moment, her brilliant musicianship, her unflinching intelligence and her teeming political consciousness are right there in front of us.

In the aftermath of Summer of Soul’s release and its ecstatic reception, some have taken issue with the film’s subtitle, (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), and the contention that the footage was lost for 50 years. Footage from the concerts was literally televised, airing on network television during the summer of 1969 and there have been plans to create a documentary about the festival since the early 2000s, as detailed by the website Book & Film Globe.

These criticisms, however, ultimately seem petty. While the subtitle might be hyperbole, all’s fair when it comes to hype and it’s a historical fact that black music and culture have consistently been neglected, misrepresented and undervalued in the mainstream media and this country as a whole. When producer and director Hal Tulchin shopped the footage in the early 1970s in order to make a feature length concert film, nobody bit. Whether it languished for 30 years or 50 years is pedantic.

Summer of Soul is an exceptional film that captures for posterity a little known event of significant cultural importance and is certainly one of the best music documentaries in recent memory. It’s also a frustrating viewing experience, caught between being a concert movie and a documentary about a time and place. It’s more successful as the latter than the former. Perhaps, that’s the result of Questlove’s impossible task; editing down 40 hours of footage into a two-hour film. In an interview with Pitchfork, he says his first cut of the film ran three and a half hours. It should be noted that the 1970 movie Woodstock clocks in around three hours. While watching Summer of Soul I couldn’t help wondering how much better it would have been had Questlove been afforded a similar run time and allowed to fulfill his original vision. Hopefully, more footage from these concerts will be released in the future.

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.

Stream Summer of Soul on Hulu