Metacritic reviews

Everything about this film is genuinely absorbing. The performances are restrained. The locations, many of them seemingly on the Perry Studios lot, are lush. The musical numbers are decadent . . . The storytelling is efficient, the scenes well-paced, the command of social and racial politics ironclad.

This is an ambitious, handsome-looking picture that strives to capture the essence of life in the deep South in the mid-20th century in a way that makes movie sense, without excessively romanticizing it.

A Jazzman’s Blues proves that when Perry applies himself in a particular fashion, his work can stand entirely on its own.

A Jazzman’s Blues overflows with melodrama, yet it isn’t staged broadly. It’s closer to Perry’s version of a Douglas Sirk film, one that takes a romance and heightens it until the complications are growing and twisting around it like vines.

A Jazzman’s Blues is a passion project that climbs close to the edge of becoming self-indulgent fodder. The film is never as deep as it thinks it is. Nor is it terribly original either. But for Perry, this is a massive change. And while you shouldn’t praise a director for merely trying. Perry does more than try with “A Jazzman’s Blues.” He finally shows that he’s not a one-trick pony.

[Perry] also has a way of making even the most telegraphed twists and overheated dialogue ring with conviction, a consummate entertainer to the end.

A Jazzman’s Blues is overindulgent, a narrative feast of twists and turns. The formidable work of the cast paces us, helping viewers digest the plot and saving Perry’s screenplay from the collateral damage of its broad scope.

At its core, A Jazzman’s Blues is a soap opera full of shocking secrets, emotional confrontations, and one exceedingly satisfying slap.The mystery aspects are thin; anyone with passing knowledge of Black American history can infer early on who was killed, why, and by whom.

This is one of those movies where the soundtrack is far and wide the best element.

Notwithstanding the embellishments, this undoubtedly remains a Tyler Perry film — occasionally for better, but often for worse.