Midway through “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the new Netflix drama based on August Wilson’s acclaimed stage play, the title character drifts into a monologue. “White folk don’t understand about the blues,” muses Rainey (Viola Davis), an innovator at the crossroads of blues and jazz with an unbending faith in her own expressive engine. “They don’t understand that that’s life’s way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better, you sing because that’s your way of understanding life.”Time seems to roll to a stop as Rainey speaks. The movies, with few exceptions, have hardly ever told the story of jazz through the lens of Black life.

Source: New York Times December 29, 2020 18:33 UTC