Everyone has that one special teacher from his or her childhood who was totally aware of their potential, always pushing them a little bit harder, a little bit further. For a select group of students who made up a struggling, all-Black jazz band at Kashmere Senior High School in Houston, Texas in the mid-1970s, that teacher was musician/band director Conrad O. Johnson, better known to his students as 'Prof.'

Prof changed these students' lives forever, and made the world take notice. The award-winning documentary 'Thunder Soul,' now out on DVD, tells their intriguing story.  Actor/singer Jamie Foxx serves as executive producer.

'Thunder Soul' tells the 'little-engine-that-could' story of the Kashmere Stage Band, a fair-to-middling high school jazz band that would go on to one day become a funk-jazz powerhouse band, wowing music fans on three continents.

Thirty-five years after setting the music world on fire, the members of the band reunite to show their appreciation to Prof and all the musical education and valuable life lessons he taught them; to prove to him that learning those fundamental music tools hadn't been for naught, and very much helped shape them into the adults they are today.

Sometimes you can go back.

Special features: Audio commentary with director Mark Landsman and editor Claire Didier, and never-before-seen footage from the documentary 'Prof & The Band', including an in-depth interview with Johnson and footage from the band's first performance abroad - in Europe.

http://blog.cleveland.com/poplife/2012/01/documentary_thunder_soul_now_o.html