OK, so here’s a plot summary, of a period romance/musical drama, A Jazz Man’s Blues, courtesy of ioncinema.com:

A Jazz Man’s Blues is set in the post-World War II South, where a young black jazz singer leaves his rural town in search of fame. During his absence, it’s discovered that he had an affair with a local married woman. But all is not as it seems: the woman is actually his former lover and a light skinned black who has been passing as white. Her racist husband has no idea about her color or her past, and organizes the local Klan chapter to hunt down the jazz singer. Now a successful performer in Chicago, the jazz singer finds himself drawn back South to help save his mother’s ailing nightclub and face his accusers.

Interesting pemise, methinks. I’d certainly pay to see this if it ever got made. However, I wonder what the chances are of a movie like this getting made and distributed, even on a limited release, especially if Hollywood has anything to do with it. I’m guessing that unless you’re Tyler Perry, the chances are pretty slim.

Oh, wait… did I forget to mention that this is a Tyler Perry movie and it’s being co-produced (along with Perry’s self named production company) and distributed by none other than Lions Gate? According to a now deleted Wikipedia page, it was originally set for a June 09 release but is currently listed on IMDB Pro as being in-development with an unspecified 2010 release date.

So… Tyler Perry doing a period drama… A period drama that would appear to have some weight and cover a topic that’s sure to court controversy in these um… post-racial times… Tyler Perry!!??!! And no, he’s not just producing, if that’s what you’d hope, but is set to star and direct, and wrote the script himself… Oh dear.

Unless you’re new to these parts, it’s no great secret that TP gets short shrift on this site. Was there an uproar when it was announced that he’d taken over the production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Not Enuf, even though new comer, Nzingha Stewart had alread secured interest from Lions Gate with her script adaptation of the book…? Oh, hell yeah! Were we impressed when it was announced that he had signed on to be executive producer of Lee Daniels‘ Sundance sensation, Precious after it had already gone on to wow the global festival circuit…? Well, at best he was an opportunist and at worst he was Lions Gate’s ploy to secure an audience for a film that they had publicly fought (with The Weinstien Company) to acquire but which they had no idea how to market – it’s about an illiterate fat black chick, for Chrissakes! Perry could help bring in his mainly black fanbase and co-exec. producer Oprah could help bring in her mainly white fanbase…

But I’m beginning to see more than just a purveyor of stereotypical, buffoonish black  characters and weak, simplistic morality tales. Lurking somehwere under that dragtastic Madea fat suit seems to be a shrewd business man who didn’t just happen upon some good fortune simply by giving Whitey what he wants… okay, so maybe he did, but it also seems to be what many money paying black people want too. And, anyway, isn’t giving Whitey what he wants what many African-Americans have had to do for centuries in order to get ahead? The trick, of course, is being able to do it AND get ahead! No mean feat, it would seem, especially when conscious brothers and sisters are screaming “sell-out!” at your every sickening, steeped in stereotype mov(i)e. But much to the disdain and dismay of the more high-brow (and thus less financially well off) among us, some have cracked it, particularly the more savvy in the music/hip-hop industry. Perry, it would seem, is the fey Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson of film.

I found the following excerpt in an interview on CanMag.com in February 2007, in which Perry says of A Jazz Man’s Blues:

“I play a jazz singer in 1947 who’s in love with a woman that’s passing for white, who’s married to someone in the town,” Perry said. “I meet up with a Holocaust survivor who becomes my manager and my character becomes the biggest jazz singer in the world and comes back to get this woman. It’s a straight drama. It’s a departure from anything I’ve done. It was written 12 years ago. So I had to do these movies in order to have the leverage to do this one.”

I’ve never seen a Perry movie. To the best of my knowledge, none of his films have been released in the UK nor, in fact, anywhere outside of North America, though please feel free correct me if I’m wrong on this point. I’ve seen online trailers for some of his movies, none of which have piqued my interest particularly, I’ve seen posters when visiting the US… At this juncture, however, even though popular opinion among people whose opinions I actually bother to listen to would suggest that he’s far from being the best African-American filmmaker that ever graced our screens, I’ve actually reached the point (or his name has actually become so unavoidable) where I’m prepared to sit through a TP movie… probably not something that has his cash cow character, Madea, in it… maybe something more star-studded and potentially relevant to my life like Why Did I Get Married? If it ever came on Film Four, Sky Drama or Sky Indie, yes, I’d most probably watch it – if only to get an idea of just how bad he really is as a filmmaker – a charge which could be levelled at many a Hollywood hack who isn’t black.

Even without having seen any of his films, however, I can’t help but think that perhaps it’s about time he stopped behaving like a cash strapped, ambitious, high on ideas but talent-deficient indie filmmaker and started getting other people who know their craft to actually star in, write and direct his future projects for him ( i.e. maybe it’s time he started behaving like the big-time film producer he’s either astutely or inadvertently become, and give other people – actors, writers, director… and audiences – a break).

But maybe Perry has something up his sleeve, perhaps his climbing on the critically acclaimed Precious band-wagon was a shrewdness more on his part than on Lions Gate’s. Pushing back the release of A Jazz Man’s Blues from June 09 to a likely similar time next year certainly gave both Lions Gate and Perry the opportunity to get behind a race senstive movie and gauge audience reaction to it. Given their surprise success with his movies, perhaps he’s convinced them that, as profitable as his light weight dramas have been, there’s only so long that those kinds of movies can keep ‘em coming in.

There’s little doubt he has their ear. Perhaps, unbeknown to us, he’s been banging the diversification drum quietly in that ear and convinced them that a project like A Jazz Man’s Blues is something that movie audiences, particularly black audiences, are waiting to see.  There’s little doubt that his repeated commercial successes warmed them to the idea of other “black” projects like Precious and For Colored Girls, and they certainly seemed to hand For Colored Girls over to him without much ado…. They took a chance on Perry when no-one else would and its been paying off handsomely ever since.

A few weeks ago, Tambay posed the question “Does The Success of Precious Mean Anything For Black Cinema?” Well, it seems to me that Perry and Lionsgate have been willing to bet on it. We’ve joked on this site from time to time that Lions Gate is becoming the go-to studio for black film projects. I’m not sure if that feeling in my stomach is queasiness or excitement, but I suspect that at least initially (since other studios are bound to want to cash in to the next “race” movie phase) all roads to Lions Gate will go through Mr Perry…