If you've seen a concert film before, you know that there's more to films in this genre than concert footage. Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" had lots of crazy offstage stuff, to offer just one example. "Soul Power," a new film from director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, is no different.
The 93-minute picture captures for posterity the "Zaire 74" music festival that was organized around Don King's 1974 "rumble in the jungle" title bout in which Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round to regain his title as heavyweight champion of the world. That fight was documented in the movie "When We Were Kings."
The concert's stated aim was to bring African-American musical stars to Africa, although it clearly was also meant to help build further hype around what would turn out to be an historic boxing match.
James Brown headlined the three-day festival and, therefore, headlines the film. But there are also performances by The Spinners, The Crusaders, Hugh Masekela, BB King, Big Black, Fania All-Stars featuring Celia Cruz, Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, Orchestre Afrisa International with Tabu Ley Rochereau and an extremely youthful Sister Sledge.
Interestingly, some of the best musical footage comes from offstage in scenes like the one shot on board the airplane carrying the artists to Africa.
The Fania All-Stars lead an impromptu jam that seems to involve nearly everyone on board. Seeing BB King in his seat jamming with Johnny Pacheco, Celia Cruz and others is great.
In other scenes there are local drummers and a great Afro-Beat band playing live on the street. And conga player Ray Barretto impresses those gathered at the open market by sitting in with some local musicians.
This is not to discount the footage from onstage at the festival. Big Black's performance on the congas is heart-stopping; an amazing display of percussive skill.
Bill Withers is a human songbird on "Hope She'll Be Happier," accompanied only by his own acoustic guitar and The Spinners get off on the good foot with some great moves during "One of A Kind (Love Affair)."
BB King's "The Thrill is Gone" is great and so are the tunes by most everyone else. Sister Sledge is only seen in rehearsal, not onstage.
The main problem here is that there simply isn't enough concert in this film.
The behind the scenes looks at the set up of the festival -- both in negotiations with the Zairean government and the on-the-ground logistics of setting up the stage and gear -- are interesting enough, but it's roughly 40 minutes into the film when The Spinners finally take the stage to kick off the festival.
In his scenes Ali is as outspoken as you'd expect in his commentary on what it means to be African-American, to be an African-American seeing Africa, on race relations in the U.S. and taking the musicians to task for not using their clout to speak out on behalf of black Americans.
Interestingly, we don't see Foreman. Sadly, we only see slightly more than that of most of the artists performing at the concert.
So, while "Soul Power" has some brilliant music and some interesting footage, it's not as perfect as we'd hoped.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
