A Jazzman’s Blues: 10 Movies & TV Shows Where You’ve Seen The Cast

Tyler Perry’s latest feature film, A Jazzman’s Blues, is now streaming on Netflix, which is a story about a couple’s forbidden love complicated by deception and secrets during the 1950s. It boasts an impressive cast, including newcomers and supporting actors with significant TV experience, with Joshua Boone and Solea Pfeiffer playing the lead characters.

Boone and Pfeiffer are relatively new to Hollywood, with Pfeiffer being a major name on Broadway, thanks to Hamilton. The other supporting cast members are also familiar faces with experience in mainstream titles such BlacKkKlansman, How To Get Away With Murder, and Dynasty.

Joshua Boone – Premature (2020)

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In A Jazzman’s Blues, Joshua Boone plays Bayou, the troubled protagonist and talented jazz musician who moves to the North after the rampant racism and violence of the South.

Boone has had appearances in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Seven Seconds. Even though as a lead actor, Premature is his sole credit before the new Tyler Perry film. Premature stars him as a mysterious character called Isiah who charms the 17-year-old Ayanna (played by Zora Howard). The rest of the drama navigates the changes Ayanna goes through as she explores her new relationship in the summer before college.

Solea Pfeiffer – Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-)

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Leanne, one of the two protagonists of A Jazzman’s Blues, is played by Solea Pfeiffer. The character falls for Bayou, but her relationship is doomed, given how her controlling mother wants to marry her off to a rich, White man.

Even though her film and TV work are still limited, Solea Pfeiffer is quite accomplished as a theater actor, playing the titular lead in Evita and Eliza Hamilton in Hamilton. She reprises the latter role in the season 9 finale of Larry David’s long-running sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. The episode brings back several Hamilton actors, including the play’s creator Lin Manuel-Miranda, after David and Miranda’s artistic and personal rivalries result in a Hamilton-esque paintball fight.

Amirah Vann – How To Get Away With Murder (2014-2020)

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A washerwoman and a doula, Amirah Vann’s Hattie is an inspiring character as she not only raises Bayou with earnestness but also plans on opening a juke joint later. Vann has had major roles on TV with Underground and How To Get Away With Murder.

The latter focuses on a professor of criminal law who gets entangled in a murder plot along with her students. Attempting to use her academic skills in actual practice, Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating goes down a rabbit hole of constant twists and turns. Vann appeared in the fourth season as a recurring character, followed by a main role in the next two as a powerful attorney called Tegan Price. Tensions rise between the two when Tegan starts falling for Annalise, adding more dramatic depth to Vann’s performance.

Austin Scott – Pose (2018-2021)

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Bayou isn’t a single sibling as he shares a conflicted relationship with his brother Willie. Scott has previously appeared in several shorts, but on mainstream TV, he is perhaps best known for his appearance in Pose.

Chronicling the rise of ball culture and the impact it had on the gay and trans community in the 80s and 90s New York, Pose individualizes several characters with their fleshed-out arcs. House Abundance alumna Blanca (who goes on to create her own House Evangelista) similarly takes care of her House’s “children” but has no time for love. So, in a season 2 episode, when she’s rescued by a handsome lifeguard named Adrian (played by Scott), she just decides to go where fate takes her, and the two even hit it off for a brief while.

Ryan Eggold – BlacKkKlansman (2018)

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Ryan Eggold joins the supporting cast by essaying Ira, a Holocaust survivor. When he’s not busy handling TV roles in mainstream titles such as 90210, New Amsterdam, and The Blacklist, Eggold makes occasional appearances in movies.

In 2018, he also appeared in one of the best Spike Lee movies, the biographical crime drama BlacKkKlansman, in which he plays Walter Breachway, the president of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter. The movie explores the amusingly true story of Ron Stallworth, the first black officer of the Colorado Springs Police Department, who managed to infiltrate the higher echelons of the infamous white supremacist organization.

Brent Antonello – Dynasty (2017-2022)

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One of the upscale suitors for Leanne (much against her wishes) is John Clayton, played by Dynasty alumnus Brent Antonello.

Dynasty, a reboot of the 80s drama of the same name, focuses on the conflict between competing wealthy families and their equally rich and spoiled children. In the show’s fancy world, Antonello appears as con artist Hank Sullivan who succeeds at romancing the socialite Alexis Carrington. If it weren’t enough, Hank even pretends to be Alexis’s long-lost son, one of the most unbelievable things in Dynasty.

Brad Benedict – The Oval (2019-)

Stream On Bet+

Brad Benedict, who appears in A Jazzman’s Blues as Sheriff Jackson, isn’t new to working with its director as he had a recurring role on Tyler Perry’s TV show The Oval.

With Perry serving as creator and director, the political soap opera deals with the everyday affairs of a newly-elected President and his family as they adjust to the White House life. At the same time, subplots focus on the inner workings of the Presidential Staff. Benedict, who has appeared in 90 episodes of the show, plays a Secret Service agent called Kyle Flint.

Milauna Jemai Jackson – Aquarius (2015-2016)

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Playing the supporting character Citsy, Milauna Jemai Jackson has had roles in Strike Back, Dexter, NCIS, and Aquarius.

The last one is a short-lived investigative thriller series set in the backdrop of Charles Manson and his “cult” of killers. David Duchovny and Grey Damon star as two LA detectives who must deal with Manson’s influence and the threat of an upcoming “race war.” Jackson joins the cast as Damon’s wife resulting in an interracial relationship that draws its own concerns of racial attacks throughout the show.

E. Roger Mitchell – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Stream On Epix

Bayou might not have the skills to play the trumpet, but he still boasts some fine vocals. Alas, his musically-gifted father, played by E. Roger Mitchell, gets disappointed by him and prefers Bayou’s brother as his favorite son.

Fans of the Hunger Games series would remember Mitchell from his role as Chaff in Catching Fire. A former winner of the Games, he makes his sophomore appearance at the dystopian tournament as a male tribute of District 11. However, he is revealed to be one of the rebels, and his intention at the Games this time is to not win but protect Katniss Everdeen, one of the most badass female movie characters. Jennifer Lawrence’s protagonist evokes a new hope for the ones fighting against the authoritarian Panem.

Lana Young – Greenleaf (2016-2020)

Stream On Netflix

Lana Young, who plays Leanne’s uptight mother, has interestingly played the roles of doctors in various TV shows. Greenleaf is one of them in which she plays Dr. Jacinta Butler.

With an ensemble cast led by Keith David and Lynn Whitfield, Greenleaf deals with the influential Greenleaf family whose businesses include a megachurch in Memphis. The show then explores the dark secrets that went behind establishing their empire and influence. Young’s Dr Butler is a president of a related Christian society appearing in the second season.

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