Louis is a film treat like no other where classic jazz meets cinema, with Wynton Marsalis playing the music of Armstrong, Morton, Ellington, and Cecile Licad interpreting Gottschalk’s Creole masterpieces.
It is Cecile Licad on the piano!
Wynton Marsalis on the trumpet!
And a 13-member jazz ensemble doing live accompaniment for the silent film, Louis by Dan Pritzker, May 17 to May 30, 2025.
Poster of Louis by Dan Pritzker .
The 2010 silent film with live music by Licad and Marsalis will have a May 2025 run in five cities: May 17—Santa Barbara, CA (Arlington Theatre), May 18— San Diego, CA (Balboa Theater), May 20—Irvine, CA (Irvine Barclay Theatre), May 21—Los Angeles, CA (Orpheum Theatre), May 22—Phoenix, AZ (Chandler Center for the Arts), May 24—Oakland, CA (Paramount Theatre), May 25—Santa Rosa, CA (Luther Burbank Center), May 28—Seattle, WA (Paramount Theater), May 29—Eugene, OR (The Shedd), and May 30— Portland, OR (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall).
Louis the silent film was written by Derick Martini, Steven Martini, Dan Pritzker and David N. Rothschild, and was shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. It stars Anthony Coleman (as the young Louis Armstrong), Jackie Earl Haley and Michael Rooker.
Licad playing Gottschalk in the silent film ‘Louis’
Licad told us earlier that she got involved in the film project after director Pritzker heard her recording of the Gottschalk pieces.
The pianist ended up playing Gottschalk live in the world premiere of Louis at the Symphony Center in Chicago on Aug. 25, 2010.
Musicologists consider Louis Moreau Gottschalk as the first American piano virtuoso and quite a seasoned traveler. His journeys to Europe, the Caribbean, Africa and South America, combined with a French flavor derived from his mother’s side and a Creole influence from his New Orleans background, ensured a wide variety of compositional styles.
Music specialists described Gottschalk’s music as upbeat and invigorating. “It reflects a young and adventurous country hungry for more territory, more respect… more of everything. But in the end, the heart of Gottschalk’s music is unmistakingly pure ‘Americana’.”
Most CD critics described the Licad Gottschalk recording as “sensational” and the best of the composer.
Wrote reviewer Jed Distler: “Cecile Licad may have been groomed under Rudolf Serkin’s exacting tutelage, but her visceral, exuberant Gottschalk playing evokes Vladimir Horowitz’s diabolical art. It’s not just speed and accuracy that Licad brings to the impossible repeated notes in Le banjo or Tremolo, but also impulsive dynamic surges and fustian drama. Her nimble, skywritten runs in La Jota Aragonesa simply take your breath away, as do her exquisitely shaped soft chords. For all of Licad’s affetuoso teasing in The Dying Poet, somehow the work’s surface treacle never turns maudlin. She summons up every inch of blood and thunder in virtuosic nationalist works such as the Souvenirs d’Andalousie, Souvenir de Porto and the Union. Her rhythm is infectious as well as galvanizing: Listen to La Gallina’s tango-influenced underpinnings and you’ll be dancing within seconds.”
In 2010, Licad got an ovation at the Philamlife Theater when she played Gottschalk’s Pasquinade as encore of her debut with an orchestra led by Gerard Salonga.
Wynton Marsalis in the silent film on Louis Armstrong
Before the Marsalis tour in May, Licad has been kept busy recording a significant portion of Scott Joplin’s ragtime pieces. She played 19 rags during a two-day recording session, including a six-hour session on the first day. The recordings were done using a saloon-style piano provided by Steinway & Sons, with Scott Steiner as producer and Henry Reinach assisting in the studio.
Before the recording, she tried this saloon-sounding piano in the Steinway factory early this year. “I liked it a lot,” she declared after testing it.
Licad included Joplin in her Carnegie Hall recital last December and created quite a stir.
‘This was the kind of performance that was less about pianistic display than about ideas and meaning, something classical music needs much more’
Wrote reviewer George Grella of New York Classical Review: “This was the kind of performance that was less about pianistic display than about ideas and meaning, something classical music needs much more. Licad is both an excellent pianist and an excellent musician. The pairing of her chops at the keyboard, which are superb and of her thinking which is both logical and personal. Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Souvenir d’ Andalousie were superb, the right balance of order and freedom. Licad knows Gottschalk probably better than any living pianist, and the showpiece was dazzling and tremendous fun, a triple exclamation points at the end of the evening.”
Licad thanked critic Jed Distler for a quote in the Gottschalk review and told her: “Got to get this back in my fingers. Souvenir d’andalousie—as if it’s not hard enough in its original key—has been transposed in a more difficult key for this film.”
Indeed, both music lovers and cineastes agree that one of the big come-ons of the film is the live music provided by Marsalis and Licad.
In its screening at the Keswick Theater in Pennsylvania in 2010, the film got a rave review with even more adulation for the musicians who performed the live music.
Wrote local jazz critic Wade Luquet: “In a sense, tonight’s performance was about two men named Louis, both of whom had a profound impact on American music. Licad expertly played the Gottschalk tunes with feeling and emotion that left the audience speechless from its beauty and the realization of Gottschalk’s influence on early jazz as the two musical forms were played on the same stage.”
Filmed on location in New Orleans and on a soundstage in North Carolina, Louis has the sepia-toned hues of a bygone era, along with flashes of contemporary wit
Washington Post wrote of Louis: “At a time when high-definition video, 3-D technology and instant downloading are redefining the cinematic experience— and not always for the better—making a silent film seems downright radical. But that’s what first-time director Dan Pritzker decided to do with Louis, his movie about Louis Armstrong that is going on tour this week and has a one-time screening Saturday at the Music Center at Strathmore. As transporting as that performance promises to be, the images in Louis are often just as musical as the sounds themselves. Filmed on location in New Orleans and on a soundstage in North Carolina, Louis has the sepia-toned hues of a bygone era, along with flashes of contemporary wit. At once archaic and dynamic, the film’s visual design was conceived by Pritzker in collaboration with production designer Charles Breen and Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.”
Zsigmond is best known for his work on the 1970s films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter, among others.
Of Louis, Zsigmond said in an earlier publicity for the film: “The challenge was to make a movie with modern technology and make it look like it was shot in the 1920s. That was really our concern: How much we should we borrow from the style of the past and how much should we make it look like the movie was shot today?”
Pritzker, Zsigmond and camera operator Neal Norton spent hours in rehearsals with the cast. They shot the take several times, often coming nearly to the end when they would run out of film. “We basically had only five takes that went all the way to the end,” Zsigmond recalled. The result is one of the best sequences in Louis, a bravura ode to cinema’s past and present.
In earlier interviews, Pritzker knew from the outset that he wanted to work with jazz great Wynton Marsalis. “The idea of accompanying a silent film telling a mythical tale of a young Louis Armstrong was appealing to me,” said Marsalis on his website. “Of course, calling it a silent film is a misnomer — there is plenty of music, and jazz is like a conversation between the players so there’ll be no shortage of dialogue.”
Of Licad as Gottschalk interpreter, music writer Jeff Distler noted in Classics Today: “Licad may have been groomed under Rudolf Serkin’s exacting tutelage, but her visceral, exuberant (Louis Moreau) Gottschalk playing evokes Vladimir Horowitz’s diabolical art.” Marsalis adds “I look forward to playing with Cecile. The contrast between Gottschalk’s music and jazz can be a revelation to those unfamiliar with either Gottschalk or jazz.”
For Pritzker in an earlier interview promoting Louis, the combination of “Cecile playing Gottschalk and Wynton and his ensemble playing jazz reflects the wide-ranging nature of the American musical landscape.”
Zsigmond, in a release on Louis, commented on this project earlier at the time of filming: “This was a very interesting project for me because I always wanted to do a silent film and in this era it’s highly unusual for one to be made. I also love working in black-and-white. The most important thing for me in cinematography is the light. Good lighting shouldn’t be visible, it should seem natural.”
Said Licad on FB: “Looking forward again to be a part of this wonderful silent film by Dan Pritzker and collaborating with the great Wynton Marsalis.”
Licad will have a return engagement in Manila at the Metropolitan Theater on Sept. 24, 2025, 6:30 p.m., with the Philippine Philharmonic under the baton of Maestro Grzgorz Novak. She will be soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 and Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major.
Then Licad goes on a national outreach tour kicking off at Baguio Country Club (September 27), Pinto Gallery (September 28), MiraNila (October 1), University of the Philippines Visayas (Oct. 6), and with last outreach concert in Catanduanes.
