Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

The late Chadwick Boseman deserves to go out on a high note, although his final portrayal in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom isn’t the only element of this music-based drama that sings.

This evocative adaptation of a stage play by August Wilson (Fences) is a leisurely plotted and wonderfully performed examination of a pivotal time in the rise of the jazz scene in the 1920s, as shaped by an undercurrent of racism and opportunism.

This fictionalized account of larger-than-life Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) finds the legendary Black singer interrupting her Deep South tour to attend an afternoon recording session at a Chicago studio.

She’s a feisty, hard-headed diva with a reputation that precedes her. “They don’t care nothing about me. They just want my voice,” she laments, with sweat perpetually glistening off her skin.

The backup band includes Levee (Boseman), a cocky young trumpeter looking for a breakthrough by trying to pitch more upbeat arrangements of Ma Rainey’s standards. The white record executives approve, but Ma Rainey is fiercely protective of her authority and her work.

The studio walls mostly provide a temporary safe haven from the pervasive prejudice the performers face on the outside. However, as the heat rises, so does the tension.

In the rehearsal room, the band members contemplate everything from pop culture to politics to religion, while Ma Rainey’s demands and Levee’s brash behavior threaten the entire project.

Davis and Boseman fully inhabit their roles while balancing their respective characters’ strengths and vulnerabilities. The camaraderie between the musicians, for example, really allows the sharp dialogue in Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s screenplay to crackle.

Under the guidance of veteran stage director George C. Wolfe, the film doesn’t endeavor to assertively free the material from its stagebound roots. Yet it still captures the period with a meticulous eye for detail, not just visually but in terms of its rich artistic and cultural texture.

Likewise, Branford Marsalis’ score articulates the very essence of blues music, with its buoyant instrumentals suffused with melancholy vocals. As a loosely structured biopic, the film enables contemporary moviegoers to appreciate musicians like Ma Rainey who, because of discrimination, were never given their due or provided a pathway to mainstream acclaim.

That’s hammered home in the powerful final scene of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which finds its rhythm in more than just the vibrant jazzy soundtrack.

Rated R, 94 minutes.