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This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. As part of Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary celebration this year,

tonight NBC will premiere a documentary highlighting the music guests and music comedy sketches that the show

has featured over the decades. It's called Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of S&L Music. It was co-directed by my guest, Grammy-winning musician and

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Amir Kwestloff Thompson. He's the co-founder, leader, and drummer of the

hip-hop band The Roots. It's the house band for another late-night show, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Before Questlove talks about the movie and how SNL has influenced him as a musician and late-night

band leader, our TV critic David Bion Kooley is going to review the film, along with a documentary

series that's also part of the 50th anniversary celebration. That series is streaming on Peacock.

The two new Saturday Night Live documentaries come from filmmakers who bring their own interests and perspectives.

NBC's Ladies and Gentlemen 50 Years of S&L Music comes from Amir Questlove Thompson, who's both a musician and a music historian.

And the four-part, SNL-50 Beyond Saturday Night, now streaming on Peacock, comes from Morgan

Neville, who's as interested in the creative process as he is in letting people tell their

own stories. Questlove, in his movie-length study, minds the archive of a half-century of musical

performances, as well as the emergence of hip-hop and other genres into the show and the

culture. Some classic performances are run full length. Others are sampled in cleverly compiled

montages and mashups.

It's such a solid, well-selected overview that I can think of only one S&L music performance I really wish had been included.

Paul Simon, backed by Lady Smith Black Mombazo, on their thrilling 1986 rendition of diamonds

on the soles of her shoes.

But Questlove covers a lot.

Not only infamous appearances by Elvis Costello,

...