Your
host will be Aloe Blacc, but our narrator is the ultimate voice of authority,
Morgan Freeman. Blacc is in fact a good choice to be the film’s tour guide,
because even though he is a hip hop-R&B-club-crossover, he is deeply
steeped in jazz and Latin styles. He says all the right things about Louis
Armstrong, who is clearly the central musical figure in Journey.
However, it is a bit annoying he keeps choosing to perform “What a Wonderful
World,” which was a posthumous hit for Armstrong, instead of a song that would
have had more personal significance for the jazz icon, like “Black and Blue.”
It
is fun to see Blacc get a walking tour of New Orleans courtesy of Jonathan
Batiste, but it would have been nice to hear more from the pianist (who some
viewers might recognize from appearances in Treme, Red Hook Summer, and
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus). Dr. John gets even less screen-time, but at
least we hear one of his licensed tracks.
Blacc
follows the jazz story up to Chicago, meeting up with Ramsey Lewis, but
seriously, how could MacGillivray cut away from his performance of “The
In-Crowd,” which is still one of the coolest jazz tunes ever? In Chicago, Blacc
also checks out a flash-mob dance set to his hit song “Wake Me Up,” one of
several IMAX-friendly performance numbers. Later, there will be dancers
rappelling across a skyscraper and sky-diving Elvis impersonators to keep kids
interested.
