Sloane: A Jazz Singer is a documentary feature from Goingbarefoot about late jazz singer Carol Sloane, who finally gets her due. Sixty years ago, Carol Sloane was a highly-acclaimed jazz singer, who was regularly invited to appear on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show. A top-tier Columbia records talent with dozens of albums to her name, and often compared to Ella Fitzgerald in her heyday, Sloane in fact spent much of her life struggling to pay her rent. The documentary (www.sloanefilm.com) is now available worldwide for video-on-demand, live, and virtual screenings via global film and exhibition platform Kinema.
Michael Lippert directed the project, which interweaves rare network TV footage, spirited interview commentary, and insight from Sloane’s contemporaries. The feature catches up with the artist, as she prepares for her final live recording at New York City’s iconic Birdland.
Lippert worked with executive producers Stephen Barefoot and L. Taylor Arnold, as well as with producers Donna Campbell and Georgann Eubanks to create Sloane: A Jazz Singer, which was named Best Documentary Feature after its debut at the 2023 Santa Fe Film Festival. Since then, it has appeared in 32 festivals worldwide, earning 12 Best Documentary honors to-date.
Sloane: A Jazz Singer marks Lippert’s feature debut, following a career as an award-winning writer, director and editor. He often stays busy editing spots at Cutters Studios. In the case of Sloane, he was personally responsible for all aspects of this film’s physical production, editing, post production finishing and mastering. Here, he shares his thoughts on the project and how his background prepared him for taking on a feature.
How did your work as an editor make you a better director?
“When I applied for my first post job, I naively told the general manager there about my directing aspirations - which is probably why I didn’t get that job. He then explained that a lot of directors start out as editors. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized why that seems to be true: When you’re making a film on-set, even if you have the most detailed boards, the tightest plan and the best crew, there’s still this feeling that you have a blindfold on. But once you are in the edit room, it’s like you’re finally able to take that blindfold off, look at all the pieces together and see what you made. Does it all fit together as intended? Being an editor allows you to constantly be blindfold-free. Time and again, you see what works, what ‘cuts’ as they say, and what isn’t going to, no matter how many times someone says, ‘But let’s just try it and see.’ You learn how to save time. You learn how to tell stories with the fewest number of shots, and ultimately you learn the most effective ways to structure and land a concept or idea.”
Does your insight as a director make you a better editor?
“Being a director challenges you to live inside a situation or idea for a much longer time than you normally would. You have to consider so many things at once, just to try to orchestrate and convey a cohesive story, hopefully in the most time-efficient way possible. Therefore, you are always thinking through the right combination and sequence of shots to effectively give your take on that ‘world’ or reality, whether it’s a conversation on the sidewalk or a heavily choreographed fight scene. Living in it so intensely for extended stretches just exercises that mental muscle, so once you’ve done it a bunch, you start to understand how not to overshoot a scene and still get enough coverage. It’s a tricky balance, because as an editor, I love options. But I also don’t need unnecessary fluff…so your editor will probably thank you if you don’t dump too much footage of on them.”
How did director of photography Donald Monroe help contribute to the success of this film?
“Great question. A good DP/director relationship is so important, and I felt like Donald understood this from the get-go. We started by sharing our inspirations and how we might use those to achieve a look or feel for Sloane. And he was particularly story-driven - as opposed to just trying to capture pretty images - which I find so wonderful in a DP. For my part, the inspiration was initially coming from Searching for Sugarman and 20 Feet From Stardom – two films with similar subjects and themes that I’d found compelling. But his favorite doc, he told me, was Don’t Look Back, the iconic 1960s Bob Dylan doc that really blew up verite filmmaking in a big way. That film’s influence became pivotal throughout filming. I felt if our verite moments could capture that same sense of organic reality, we were on track. So, I think Donald’s sensibility in capturing those raw moments happening in realtime added to the film in a powerful way that I can’t overstate.”
How about the contributions of Another Country mixer Drew Weir?
“I really wanted Drew to mix this because he has mixed an impressive number of really great docs, and that experience, coupled with his ear for detail and music, would be so key. He’s worked extensively with Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself), and so I knew he would come into this with a doc sensibility, which I do think is its own skill to be mastered. I was so glad he was willing, because it shows in the final product. He always had this gut sense to keep things minimal. As we worked together, I would occasionally ask for bigger sound design, which I think comes from working on genre films and automotive spots, but he would say, ‘This is all you need. It’s more about what you’re feeling, not what you’re actually hearing.’ And he was right. He added such a soft, subtle touch to the whole film, which I think elevated its sense of refinement and ultimately fit the Sloane brand. It was clear he’d done this before with highly accomplished storytellers.”
When did you actually commit to directing this film, and when did you consider it finished?
“I came on board in the winter of 2019. We locked the cut in January 2023, just after Carol passed away. Then I tweaked it again, and again, and again, as it went through festivals. I think we’re done now. I think.”
Music was instrumental in this film, and there were hurdles involved in gaining clearance. Can you walk us through those experiences?
“I wish the hurdles hadn’t been so high, but we had to have the music or we weren’t going to have a movie. The music was carefully picked to reflect Carol’s story, and I wanted to make sure it was also chosen in concert with Carol’s own approach. She was always finding songs from The Great American Songbook that conveyed the ups and downs and joys and sorrows of the life she lived. So we really had to find a way to afford these tracks, which were not only influential to Carol, but critical to the history of American music. If we as a society want these incredible songs to live on, we have to keep reminding ourselves of their power, even as new trends and fashions set in, because it’s all coming from those roots in blues and jazz. We have to know that history, which was another of Carol’s missions. After an extended fundraising effort, which lasted nearly two years, we were able to license most of the tracks. Some were in the public domain already, but not as many as you’d think, and it was a real lesson for me. It also felt backward and incredibly ironic that we were paying for songs and recordings that Carol herself never made any royalties on.”
What is your advice for up-and-coming filmmakers?
“Don’t make a movie that involves nearly two dozen music tracks you don’t own! But in all seriousness, I was reminded on a very fundamental level that you should really, really care about your subject, maybe even more than a scripted film, because documentaries can take forever. If you’re not passionate, your film will reflect that, and you’ll be miserable because you gave up six years of your life seeing it through to the end. But this one spoke to me. It wasn’t the film I was planning to make back then. But the subject matter meant a great deal to me. So, as so many others have said before me, make stuff that speaks to you personally. Pass on the rest. Unless they pay well. Then do it every time.”