There are too many highlights to mention in this callback to the Black Woodstock, consigned to history’s trashcan after uniting 50,000 people one glorious summer in Harlem ’69. Seriously: actual Woodstock was happening upstate at the same time that a slick hustler (and sometime lounge singer) named Tony Lawrence secured NYC’s Mt. Morris Park for a series of concerts called the Harlem Cultural Festival. The whole thing was filmed and then forgotten, rescued half a century later and fashioned into Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), the breathlessly exciting tribute by producer-director Ahmir Thompson (or Questlove to you and me).

An attendee, filmed today, weeps as he watches the old footage and thanks the team for showing him that yes, it really happened, and no, he isn’t just crazy. You’ll go crazy watching this thing, with Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, the Staples, the Edwin Hawkins Singers, David Ruffin, Nina Simone, and Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln among those in a mounting challenge for most electrifying performance, although Redd Foxx is the clear winner in the category of best cameo. Black Panthers provided security while 21 of its members were being tried uptown in front of a corrupt judge. Militancy is in the air, and right there onstage, in a clinch with pure catharsis and transcendental joy. As one fan puts it, “Sixty-nine was the pivotal year that Negro died and Black was born.” Community members remember Harlem as “heaven” while white TV journalists treat it like a dangerous alien planet. Same as ever. The cleverly constructed doc covers lots of angles and wins as social history while providing probably the best time you’ll have at this year’s fest. It’s also a product of the neoliberal wing of the great American entertainment complex, which adds a note of sour irony, but hey—why let politics get in the way of such a good time, right?  

Stir, May 2021