Following a decisive period in the life of fictional jazz musician Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington), Spike Lee’s loose yet masterfully directed faux-biopic pays loving tribute to the jazz scene the director grew of age in (his father, the virtuosic bassist and composer Bill Lee, composed the score). Like all Spike Lee Joints, forms and genres are upended, blended, and reinvented, with maximum style. Imbued with an erotic undercurrent, the romances and showmances of Gilliam give star Washington—in the first of many collaborations with the director—a chance to synthesize his burgeoning star power, opposite a formidable ensemble including Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, John Turturro, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbey Lincoln, Cynda Williams (in her first role) and Robin Harris (in his last).