Drummer, bandleader and producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson added filmmaker to his virtuosic list of credits with the 2021 documentary Summer of Soul. His directorial debut focuses on the 1969 Harlem Culture Festival, which included a series of free weekly concerts that captured the spectrum of Black music in an American landscape steeped in palpable change and division. Questlove has curated 17 live tracks to serve as the documentary’s soundtrack, culled from over 40 hours of mostly previously unreleased and unheard footage of the nearly-forgotten event. (The film is a must-see.) There’s psychedelic soul on opener "Uptown" by The Chambers Brothers, smoking Afro-Cuban jazz of Mongo Santamaria and Ray Barretto, and razor-sharp guitar tones from B.B. King on "Why I Sing the Blues." The sea change gospel music was experiencing at the time is represented from the radio-friendly sounds of The Edwin Hawkins Singers’ "Oh Happy Day" and The Staples Singers’ "It’s Been a Change" to a revelatory duet with Mavis Staples and her mentor Mahalia Jackson, backed by the Operation Breadbasket Orchestra & Choir on the Thomas Dorsey standard "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." Performances from two of the most dynamic artists of the era close out the soundtrack: Sly & The Family Stone lays waste to the stage with powerful versions of "Sing a Simple Song" and "Everyday People," while High Priestess Nina Simone brings it home with "Backlash Blues" and a heartfelt reading of the poem "Are You Ready." The upstate festival of Summer 1969 may be more well-known, but Questlove has done us a great service in bringing another celebration of culture, pride and music—just 100 miles away— to light. © Rick Banales/Qobuz