Utah Jazz debut full-length documentary celebrates franchise history with free viewing party

SALT LAKE CITY — All year long, the Utah Jazz have been celebrating 50 years of franchise history.

The Jazz have decided to encapsulate it all in a full-length documentary film, which fans can enjoy this weekend for free at the Delta Center.

“There’s just so much rich stories that just haven’t been told across our 50-year history,” said Chris George, senior creative director for the Utah Jazz and Utah Hockey Club.

George and others took on the “daunting” task of putting together the 90-minute feature “Note Worthy: 50 Seasons of Jazz Basketball.” George said the project came about ahead of the NBA All-Star Game, which took place in Salt Lake City in 2023.

“We said we should start capturing a lot of these stories as people are showing up for All-Star to start telling the story of our 50th,” he said. “It kind of started out as a podcast and then eventually grew in scope multiple times throughout the process.”

George took the idea to Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz and the Smith Entertainment Group, to make a documentary. In June of last year, the Jazz partnered with Heart and Hustle Productions out of Portland, Oregon.

“We sifted through and gathered over 40000 hours of footage, which ended up being about over 150 terabytes of storage space that we were sharing with our production company,” George said.

The entire project took about 13 months to complete, five of which were dedicated to editing the film.

“We had two full-time editors dedicated to the film’s story itself, as well as eight other assistant editors who are gathering footage, sifting through it, organizing it, reaching out to Louisiana State Archives, finding all of that historical footage that we can then supply to our area to editors. That was a big task in the edit,” George said.

The documentary features 70 people who have played a role in the Jazz’s past and present, including notable alumni like John Stockton, Karl Malone, and former coach Frank Layden.

“Frank, obviously, was an amazing coach, an amazing (general manager) that helped bring that team together. But then his personality is what also helped put fans in the seats to want to come and maybe not watch a great game, but be a part of the experience,” George said.

The documentary itself highlights each decade of the Jazz’s past while looking ahead to the future. George calls it a gift for fans to relive the teams’ ups and downs but teaches the younger fans “why we are the way we are today.”

“Our past really does shape who we are in the future,” George said.

The documentary’s free screening at the Delta begins at 5 p.m.; doors open at 4 p.m. The first 500 fans who attend will receive a pair of tickets to a pre-season Jazz game. The documentary will be available for viewing starting Monday at 5 p.m. on Jazz+ and then on the Utah Jazz YouTube channel on Tuesday at 5 p.m.