Reviews on this documentary has been mixed but the negatives are never about the musical performances.

A September 3, 2008 Wall Street Journal review is more celebratory in tone.
It touches on the possible flight hazard based on James Brown's 30,000 pounds of equipment and includes a very telling quote from Bill Withers.

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The Pre-Rumble in the Jungle

By JESSE DRUCKER


The legendary 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire was preceded by a three-day concert, "Zaire '74," featuring some of greatest musical artists of the time: James Brown, B.B. King, the Spinners, Bill Withers, the Fania All-Stars, Miriam Makeba and a variety of Zairian artists, like François "Franco" Luambo Makiadi. The heavyweight bout was immortalized by Leon Gast's superb 1996 documentary "When We Were Kings," and now there is a stunning new film co-produced by Mr. Gast and dedicated to the unique and, until now, oddly overlooked musical event.

"Soul Power" will have its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival tomorrow and marks the directorial debut of Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, an editor on "When We Were Kings" and a producer of such films as this year's well-received documentary "Polanski."

It bothered him for years that "there was this whole realm of music and performance and experience of the artists that was only mildly touched upon in ["When We Were Kings]," Mr. Levy-Hinte recalled. Then, two years ago, "I woke up one morning and said 'It's time.'"

Thus began the odyssey of creating a documentary from that unused footage, whose shooting had been overseen by Mr. Gast. Nearly 60 of the more than 120 hours filmed were of the concert, but the extensive reports and slating that typically make it easy to match a film's footage with its sound rolls were missing -- along with a third of the film. The movie's editor, David Smith, spent more than four months with a crew of interns painstakingly piecing together the film with its accompanying sound. Mr. Levy-Hinte also tracked down the lost material.

The concert was organized by record producer Stewart Levine and the renowned South African musician Hugh Masekela, his longtime friend. "It was just a whim, man!" Mr. Levine says now. "It was insane and I was kind of in the center of the storm."

Originally, the show was scheduled to take place during the three days before the fight. But Mr. Foreman suffered a cut above his eye during a training round, delaying the bout for six weeks. In "Soul Power," we see Mr. Levine learn of the delay but decide not to tell any of the musicians. The long plane ride to Zaire looks like a madhouse, featuring music in the aisles by the Fania All-Stars, including Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco and Yomo Toro. The flight also could have been a disaster, as the plane was weighed down by more than 30,000 pounds of unexpected musical equipment for Brown.

"Soul Power" opens with Brown. This is Brown near the end of his last great burst of creative energy, before he -- along with much of the classic soul music scene on display here -- was overtaken by the disco that Brown himself helped spawn. He turns in his customary splits and endurance-testing screams, accompanied by some of his best musicians, like trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonist Maceo Parker. He exhorts his band in trademark style -- "Fellas! Fellas! Fellas! I wanna get up and do my thing!" -- wearing a skin-tight outfit emblazoned with the initials GFOS, for Godfather of Soul, and a choker monogrammed with J.B. His walk off the stage and into his dressing room after the show, like an exhausted heavyweight champion, is captured in one long, remarkable sequence filmed by the incomparable Albert Maysles.

Other stars also emerge. Philippé Wynne, the Spinners' intense and often underrated lead singer, is riveting to watch. He and the group deliver a joyous improvisation at a party in Kinshasa: "We, the Spinners, came a long way/Got a chance to stand here in our home today/Wanna shout about it . . ." He takes off his Coke-bottle glasses to take part in a preconcert hand-clasping prayer with the rest of the group, all clad in silver jackets, before taking the stage for "One of a Kind Love Affair." In another scene, he actually spars with Mr. Ali.

B.B. King is intense during his performance of the "Thrill Is Gone." Miriam Makeba exudes charm onstage and off. And we see Ray Barretto pound his congas during the Fania All-Stars' performance. Another treat is a rehearsal session of a then-teenage girl group, barely known at the time: Sister Sledge.

Other memorable characters emerge as well, including Keith Bradshaw, the unsmiling and fierce "investors representative" for the Liberians who bankrolled the show.

And of course there is Mr. Ali, whose outsized charisma makes him dominate his few scenes. We see him argue with his corner man Drew "Bundini" Brown, telling him that he is not truly free as a black American in the U.S. He brings flair even to batting away flies as he kills time waiting for Mr. Foreman to heal: "Flies are faster here than they are in the States," he notes. "They eat too much in America -- they lazy. These flies here don't get enough to eat; they stay hungry and fast." We see the crowd part like the Red Sea to make way for Mr. Ali as he greets James Brown at the airport.

That black American musicians are triumphantly returning home to Africa is a strong theme throughout the film, stated by several of the artists during the trip. "We want to thank all the black people that it took to make it possible for us to come back home," says Wynne, choking up in the dressing room after the Spinners' performance. But reflecting on the experience today, Mr. Withers, for one, is less romantic. "The only exchange between the Zairians and most of us," he tells me, "was if you bought something. So it was like a bunch of American people hanging around the hotel." And life under the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko also created some unease. "The one thing that struck me was the opulence of Mobutu and the absolute lack of it with the regular people," Mr. Withers says.

Nevertheless, the party for the musicians went on. "We partied from the time we got there until the time we left," Mr. Wesley, Mr. Brown's bandleader at the time, recalls when we talk. "I can't tell you all what we did, because some was illegal and some was immoral, but we had big fun." Indeed, Mr. Levine tells me that the departing musicians left behind an unpaid $225,000 hotel bill that led to his house arrest for 10 days, until he was sneaked onto a flight to Italy.

Mr. Levine, who has recently moved from his long career as a record producer to filmmaking, says of "Soul Power": "It's a documentation of a different time -- when people really valued the impact of music."

http://online.wsj.com/art...92753.html

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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 6/20/09 18:56pm]

tA, thanks for that. It'll be nice to finally be able to put the images to the soundtrack I've been listening to all these years. I think even if the reviews would have been negative about the performances I still would have to see it, at least once. Sounds like it will be worth the price especially considering some of them were in their prime and some were so young and up and coming. I remember Fred Wesley saying once that things went over budget there and that Congo's financial problems today are in part because of what went on back then. I don't know if he was exaggerating or not. A lot of the musicians had to go home because they couldn't afford to stay until Foreman was Ok to fight.

After the 'When we were Kings' movie came out, I gave up hope that they even filmed the music acts in their entirety. And at one point before that movie came out, I thought JB was the only act that was there. They released the JB portion of the concert on CD back in the late 80's but I don't remember any other artists being released. It looks like this was meticulously filmed and engineered with more artists than I realized.