Press Release SPHE Press Release: Billy Joel In Black & White (Digital) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

BILLY JOEL IN BLACK & WHITE

LEGENDARY SONGWRITER BILLY JOEL LOOKS BACK AT HIS INFLUENCES AND CAREER IN “BILLY JOEL IN BLACK & WHITE” AVAILABLE GLOBALLY AND FOR THE FIRST TIME ON DIGITAL MAY 31, 2022

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SYNOPSIS In “Billy Joel In Black & White”, Billy Joel talks to an intimate audience at the Faena Theater in Miami about his musical inspirations, his craft, his family, and being a guy who never set out to be a rock star. Billy also treats the audience to performances from his iconic catalog – such as “Zanzibar”, ‘Downeaster Alexa”, “Only The Good Die Young” and “Piano Man”, along with several classic covers. The concert will be available for the first time to audiences worldwide in HD and SD. CAST AND CREW Cast: Billy Joel Director: Steven Cohen Produced by: Barry Ehrman SPECS Run Time: Approx. 49 minutes Rating: Not Rated Genre: Concert Formats: Digital HD / SD Audio: 5.1 & 2.0 Stereo

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m going to be checking this out soon but I gotta say, as a huge fan I’m disappointed by the 49 minute run time. He’s done these Q&A events for decades and they usually run about three hours. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected a three hour movie but given that this is digital and not constrained by needing to fit into a network time slot or adhere to the physical limitations of a disc, it’s a disappointing editorial choice. I feel like I will both love it and wish there was more.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

OK, so I bit the bullet and spent the $12.99 to purchase this title from iTunes (it's also available for rental at $4.99 from iTunes and other digital storefronts).

This really pains me to say, because I'm a huge fan of Billy Joel, and always eager for more official recordings of his performances to be released, but this was a tremendous disappointment. To be clear, the issue is not with the quality of Billy's songwriting or performance here. Rather, the editing choices are so horrendous that they make the entire 49 special seem like a highlight reel for a longer, better program.

The performance filmed here was one of Billy's "An Evening of Questions, Answers and a Little Music" series of lectures that he's been doing for decades. It's not, strictly speaking, a rock and roll gig, though he is joined by bandmates Tommy Brynes (guitar) and Mark Rivera (sax) for this show. He's previously explained that he does these gigs because when he was an up-and-coming musician, there was no one to turn to when he had questions about how to do the job, no one to help navigate the terrain of recording contracts and songwriting and performing, and he wanted to be a resource to younger artists who could benefit from that knowledge. Typically, Billy will field audience questions, provide a lengthy and thought-out response, and if appropriate, demonstrate the points he's making by playing portions of relevant songs (either his own or from other artists). While the event filmed here was held at a small club in Miami with the audience comprised of SiriusXM contest winners, normally these events are held at colleges and universities with strong music programs and open only to students. The show appears to have been filmed around 2019. In other words, this should have been a remarkable opportunity to get a high quality film of a type of show that most Billy Joel fans will never have the chance to see.

Sadly, the editing here ruins the entire experience, making it feel discombobulated and rushed. The audience questions have been edited out entirely. Billy's answers are also clipped, so that we see only a small portion of what his comments on any particular subject would have been. These are awkwardly edited with the song snippets he performs, which in this film aren't shown in their entirety with one exception ("Piano Man" at the very end). What we're left with is a Q&A session that's missing it's questions and most of the answers, interspersed with verses from several individual songs. Without the questions and without most of the answers, there's no real flow to the thing. The song snippets aren't satisfying on their own (who wants to hear one verse of a great song instead of the full thing?) and the editing removes most of the context around the points Billy is trying to convey and his reasons for using the songs he chooses as demonstrations.

The entire film has the feeling of being like a "next week on" teaser that you'd see at the end of an episode of a weekly TV show. Each segment feels like a teaser for a segment rather than something of actual substance. The film doesn't really have a chance to establish a rhythm, which paradoxically makes it feel longer than its 49 minute runtime would suggest.

There's probably a fantastic version of this show sitting on a cutting room floor (or hard drive) somewhere, but what's presented here is so disappointing. I'm not sure who the audience is meant to be. Casual fans probably won't be interested in seeing Billy talk without really performing all that much, and more dedicated fans will have heard many of these stories before and would rather hear both the stories and songs in full rather than highlights of them.

If you're as big of a Billy Joel fan as I am, it's probably still worth giving a shot, but best to keep expectations in check. There was undoubtedly a great performance given that evening, but unfortunately, very little of it makes it into this film. I really wish I had something better to report.