At the root of jazz is the blues, the folk music of former African slaves in the U.S. South and their descendants, heavily influenced by West African cultural and musical traditions, that evolved as black musicians migrated to the cities. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning African American composer and classical and jazz trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis:

Jazz is a musical art form originally developed by African Americans from around the turn of the 20th century. It is characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation.After originating in African American communities near the beginning of the 20th century, jazz gained international popularity by the 1920s. Since then, jazz has had a profoundly pervasive influence on other musical styles worldwide. Today, various jazz styles continue to evolve. As the first original art form to emerge from the United States of America, jazz has been described as "America's Classical Music".

Jazz has roots in the cultural and musical expression of West Africa and the western Sahel, and in African American music traditions, including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music.

Jazz is unique in the way it utilizes previously unheard-of chord tensions. The Major7 chord (1 3 5 7) became a defining sound for Jazz, much in the way that the Dominant7 chord (1 3 5 b7) is associated with Blues. The most common tensions include the 9 and the 13.

The word jazz itself is rooted in American slang, probably of sexual origin, although various alternative derivations have been suggested.

First up in the series is the Shaw Brothers chop-socky attempt to cash in on the early seventies Fusion scene with Twelve Keys of Shaolin (1973), starring John McLaughlin as guitar-wielding monk Pik Long. Seeking vengeance against the gang who kicked his brother in the face repeatedly for the first eight minutes of the film, Long must first redeem the honor of a blind seamstress (Joni Mitchell) and stage a benefit concert to save his father's noodle stand. You'll cheer the final scene (for more reasons than one), where he dispatches of the gang's leader with a withering Gm13th chord. Also starring Jack DeJohnette as Chik Boom and Gary Peacock as Lo Don.

"Proceeds go towards ensuring that Madonna never makes another movie."

Next up is a recently discovered film starring Louis Armstrong. It has long been thought that 1931's Ex-Flame was Pop's film debut, but this 1929 proto-talkie languished for decades in a film can believed to contain a pornographic movie starring Marie Dressler that no one in their right mind wanted to see until discovered by a chubby-chaser at AFI. Made by the pioneering black-owned Lincoln Motion Picture Company, and intended as an answer to Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, The Real Jazz Singer languished in obscurity mostly because of the threat of copyright infringement lawsuits. Pops essentially plays himself, as a happy-go-lucky musician from the South who comes to the big city to seek his fortune. Features a cameo by Sidney Bechet as a clarinet-playing dry cleaner who encourages Louis to pursue his dreams, and later helps him deliver a slapstick ass-whipping to a white guy in blackface who wouldn't know jazz if it bit him on the tuchus.

Beach Blanket BeBop (1959) stars Dizzy Gillespie as an affable beach bum in Hawaii who wants nothing more out of life than to surf and play jazz. When a greedy developer wants to turn Diz's favorite stretch of beach into a themed resort, Diz must rally both his fellow surf bums (Greg Noll, Buzzy Trent) and jazz musicians (Stan Getz, Max Roach) to convince a local pineapple baron (surf legend Duke Kahanamoku) to purchase the property and set it aside as a jazz/surf club. Don't miss Diz and Stan playing "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" while riding on the back of Greg Noll's longboard.

French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's stark black-and-white treatment of Miles Davis as a disaffected American expatriate trying to get a regular cup of coffee in Paris, Noir Avec des Deux Sucres (1964) should have been a masterpiece. Instead, a nervous studio heavily edited the film to tone down Davis' edgy performance and the perceived slight of French coffeemaking art. The result was an absolute mess, worse than the legendary hack job done on Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil. After years of painstaking restoration the film is about 85% of the original version, the only notable loss being a scene depicting Davis' smoldering rage after being served yet another "goddamn bowl of milk with a little coffee in it" (cafe au lait) that was said to rival Brando at his peak.

Admission will be $6.50 for each film, and will require a background check of your Netflix or GreenCine queue. Proceeds go towards ensuring that Madonna never makes another movie. LAMFO is located next to where that really cool vintage boot store used to be, down the street from the little place that makes these wonderful Chinese dumplings but there's never any place to park.

Till next month, kids, exit to your right and enjoy the rest of AAJ.