Curtain Up 2012!

I Stand Corrected

Surely one of the best documentaries at Outfest this year — and certainly director Andrea Meyerson’s finest — I Stand Corrected gets up close and personal with Jennifer Leitham, the transgender bass player whose unusual technique and extraordinary talent made her one of the most recognizable musicians in the jazz world. But she didn’t spend her entire career as Jennifer; when she began performing decades ago she was known as John Leitham, but after a lifetime of hiding her female identity at home in order to seek musical fame, Leitham couldn’t take it anymore. She risked it all to start living life as the woman she always knew she was, and she found some unlikely allies, including Tonight Show band leader Doc Severinsen, who told her he hired a bass player, not a man or a woman, which gave her permission to be herself. Meyerson met Leitham accidentally but was immediately intrigued by her music more so than her transition. “At that time, all the documentaries I had seen about transgender people were about the transition — the angst, the family, the partner, the doctor visits,” Meyerson recalls. “I loved that Jennifer was living her life as she was meant to and was so positive and happy. I was really taken with her talent as a musician and her beautiful spirit as a person and felt we could really create an uplifting film that would both enlighten and entertain people.” That it does. July 16, 7 p.m., Harmony Gold.