Sunday, January 31, 2010
Icons In The Here and Now
Icons Among Us: Jazz In The Present Tense is a significant film achievement in regards of presenting and investigating the nature of jazz. In fact I would say there are only two other films it has as peers: Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer Day and Ken Burns' Jazz. On one level it is a kind of a answer record to Burns' film, which focuses on historical figures of the past hundred years with a deep take on the social impacts of the music. "Cool Enough" says this new film, but, guess what? There is history and joyfoul sound being made in the here and now out there now.
The version of the Icons Among Us that was brought to Portland as part of the NW Film Center's was a feature version of a four hour television series that appeared on The Documentary Channel. Producer John Comerford accompanied the at the screening event for a Q & A that also featured Portland Jazz Festival Director Bill Royston. The feature endeavors to encapsulate the series. I'm a director's cut kind of guy who believes in the powers of cinema immersion so I would have preferred the full meal deal, but a solid hour and a half proved to be a heck of serving of this project that was sculpted out of 130 hours of interviews and 30 hours of performance footage.
No one can repeat Jazz On A Summer Day (Or Burns' Jazz, for that matter). The footage of Esperanza Spalding's performance at a recent JVC Concert showed us what a performance of a modern Newport Jazz Festival now, But the real resemblance is in the care that the directors of Icons take to get the viewer quickly into the essence of the performances that are included in this film around the world in sessions and rehearsals, in clubs and festivals. Comerford mentioned that this footage was shot in Super 16mm. They didn't have to do it that way but the fact they did for the aesthetic quality that film has to offer indicates just how much love and care went into this film with a big story to tell. Afterall, you better have the scale, resources and time to time and resources if a film is going to answer the likes of Burn's Jazz.
And scope is certainly a factor in telling this story of this music, which to me is described in two sections of interview in the film. In one, guitarist Bill Frisell talks about how "jazz is infinite." Another that frames the film is veteran trumpeter and composer Terrence Blanchard's observation that there is a quiet revolution going on with amazing players and diverse interpretations of what the music. If it is a revolution, it is coming from all kinds of fronts like one recalls from map animations in war documentaries. Icons shows us what came out of the eighties Young Lion's era, a taste of the European jazz scene, an excursion into the loft jazz and hippie jamband scenes, and somehow, it all kind of seems to rightly find its way back to New Orleans.
There are dozens of artists included here. But the big discovery for me was the DaKah Hip Hop Orchestra. Talk about scope and scale! This is a full fledged symphonic orchestra converging with turntable artists, rappers, soulful vocals, and all kinds of joy and surprise. Geoff "Double G" Gallegos pushes musical definitions and boundaries with a sense of proportion that reminds me of Don Ellis during the Tears of Joy period.
Icons is a film of ideas and observations from a wide range of articulate musicians and commentators. We look at the diversity of the music, but also in areas like the economics that are involved with the music. Much of the running time in the film is occupied with trying to define what jazz is and means in our current times. A thread of ideas has Seattle writer Paul de Barros sharing his concern that the music doesn't play a cultural role the way it did in the fifties and sixties. He talks about how artists like Bill Frisell can make fine music, but "How do we get it (jazz) back into the culture."
I understand de Barros point, but I counter that this music, which I believe will always have an audience that is comparatively smaller than the mainstream (as parallel, think about those who are practitioners of Macintosh computing as compared to the Windows world.) I believe the film points out some of the rewards that can be found in seeking out musical experiences. And, in actuality, one sometimes doesn't need to look to far for these rewards. For instance, the Portland Jazz Festival mirrors much of the kind of vision the film's directors captured here. During the follow up to the screening, the festival's director responded when asked by Comerford his initial impressions of the film: "I feel like the last 25 years of my life have been legitimized."
posted by well-executed buffet at 7:35 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment