Back to School: America’s Musical Journey

Hey parents, it’s September. Have you finished your Fall lesson plans? After years of sneering at home-schooling, the media now thinks you ought to be doing it. Even with Board-of-Ed materials, you’re going to need supplements to keep your kids focused and learning, so we’ll offer a few video suggestions, from time to time. For a very general lesson in American music history, you can safely turn to MacGillivray Freeman, a leading producer of IMAX films for museum patrons. Currently available on Prime, Greg MacGillivray’s America’s Musical Journey ought to keep kids busy for 39-minutes while you take a meeting.

Your host will be Aloe Blacc, but our narrator is the ultimate voice of authority, Morgan Freeman. Blacc is in fact a good choice to be the film’s tour guide, because even though he is a hip hop-R&B-club-crossover, he is deeply steeped in jazz and Latin styles. He says all the right things about Louis Armstrong, who is clearly the central musical figure in Journey. However, it is a bit annoying he keeps choosing to perform “What a Wonderful World,” which was a posthumous hit for Armstrong, instead of a song that would have had more personal significance for the jazz icon, like “Black and Blue.”

It is fun to see Blacc get a walking tour of New Orleans courtesy of Jonathan Batiste, but it would have been nice to hear more from the pianist (who some viewers might recognize from appearances in Treme, Red Hook Summer, and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus). Dr. John gets even less screen-time, but at least we hear one of his licensed tracks.

Blacc follows the jazz story up to Chicago, meeting up with Ramsey Lewis, but seriously, how could MacGillivray cut away from his performance of “The In-Crowd,” which is still one of the coolest jazz tunes ever? In Chicago, Blacc also checks out a flash-mob dance set to his hit song “Wake Me Up,” one of several IMAX-friendly performance numbers. Later, there will be dancers rappelling across a skyscraper and sky-diving Elvis impersonators to keep kids interested.

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus: Ganja & Hess, Together Again

Duane Jones only had two lead roles in his trailblazing film career, but they were both truly iconic for genre film connoisseurs. The first was George Romero’s enduringly popular Night of the Living Dead. Remaking such a familiar film was a perilous proposition, as both makeup artist Tom Savini and team of filmmakers not affiliated with Romero have proved on separate occasions. Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess is a different story. Less well known, the 1973 experimental exploitation film exists in both director and studio cuts, making issues of authenticity more complicated. Nevertheless, Spike Lee remains devotedly faithful to Gunn’s narrative throughout Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay.

Dr. Hess Greene is an independently wealthy anthropologist, who specializes in the Ashanti people and their cultural obsession with blood (which Dr. Wiki has never heard of). He is about to commence a major research project when his jittery new research assistant, Dr. Lafayette Hightower stabs him repeatedly with a ceremonial Ashanti knife, before blowing his brains out. Strangely, Dr. Greene does not die. He merely wakes up rather the worse for wear, with a powerful thirst—for blood.

Eventually, Hightower’s hot but cold ex-wife Ganja comes looking for her disappointing former husband, but finds the very rich and highly interested Greene instead. Of course, he also happens to be undead. As they fall for each other he starts planning for their eternal future together, but Greene’s new existence will become more draining (in more ways than one) than he ever anticipated.

Yes, Ganja and Hess will essentially become vampires, but neither film really plays up the traditional Universal/Hammer/Anne Rice motifs. These are very existential vampires, isolated by privilege and addiction, like Howard Hughes or Brian Wilson. It is never exactly scary, but there are several sly “here-it-comes” moments. Lee also manages to maintain a distinctively icy vibe throughout the film.

Arguably, the best thing going for Sweet Blood is its soundtrack. This is easily Bruce Hornsby’s best and most jazz-oriented film work yet. Featuring contributions from prominent musicians like Vernon Reid on guitar, Lew Soloff on trumpet, Esther Noh on violin, Clark Gayton on trombone, and Patience Higgins and Stacy Dillard on tenor, it often sounds somewhat akin to his terrific debut jazz release, Camp Meeting.

If that were not enough, the soundtrack also includes licensed tracks from Milton Nascimento’s Journey to Dawn album, as well as performances from the church band previously seen in Red Hook Summer, with Jonathan Batiste returning as the Hammond B3 organist, “TK Hazelton.” It all might sound too upbeat and soulful for a tale of quiet undead desperation, but it really helps pull viewers through many scenes that would otherwise be rather slow and aesthetically severe.

From time to time, Sweet Blood does indeed intersect with the world of Red Hook. Considering how painful his last original narrative film truly was, this would sound like a very bad idea on paper. Yet, the excursions to the “Little Church” give the new film greater depth and heart. Frankly, unlike Lee’s ill-advised remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, Sweet Blood is a pretty good film. Perhaps it is time Lee swore off originals and just stuck to reboots and sports docs.

As Greene, Stephen Tyrone Williams is cold fish, by design, but almost to a fault. However, it is great fun to watch Zaraah Abrahams ravenously chew the scenery Ganja Hightower, the temptress who will not be denied. Naté Bova also makes a strong impression as Tangier Chancellor, Hightower’s potential rival turned target of seduction. By genre standards, Sweet Blood is quite sensual, but Lee must have directed Abrahams’ horny-porny scene with Bova in a raincoat. It is the one time the film’s disciplined restraint goes out the window.

Be that as it is, Sweet Blood gets under the skin precisely because it is mostly so reserved and cold-blooded. It is not one hundred percent successful, but it is an intriguing outing from a filmmaker who hasn’t been interesting outside of New York sports documentaries for some time. Recommended for fans of Lee and Gunn’s 1973 cult classic, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is now available on DVD from Anchor Bay and Gravitas Ventures.

Solo Marathon

Merkin Hall is open again, and the sound in the auditorium is great. Yesterday, getting in evidently was a trick. If you came ten minutes early, you walked right in, but when I left there was a huge line for vacating seats.

Stylistically, the solo piano marathon was an interesting programming mix of classical, jazz, and even Broadway. Unfortunately I had to leave before Anat Fort played. She was the artist I was most interested in hearing, but I was happy to see her scheduled for the high-profile concluding hour.

One particular surprise was the first pianist, stage composer Stephen Flaherty. His set began with some of his compositions, which were actually quite memorable, followed by a nice pseudo-stride rendition of “Ain’t Misbehavin,’” concluding with some music from his Broadway show Ragtime, which incorporated traditional show tune composition with stride and rags. His set would adapt well for one of Birdland’s Broadway nights.

On the jazz side, Jonathan Batiste performed the standout set. Actually mixing in a little classical to please his teacher in attendance, Batiste still had the audience clapping and even scatting on cue. Both his technique and his ability to control an audience were impressive.

A cool aspect of the marathon was that the throngs who fought their way in were probably exposed to some music they would not ordinarily hear. They heard Michael Reisman perform his transcriptions of Philip Glass’s new soundtrack for Dracula. It was Philip Glassy, sounding basically like a dark and moody soundtrack. Some more challenging jazz came from Vijay Iyer with his funky yet adventurous “Blues for Sun Ra.” He also almost made Lennon’s “Imagine” sound interesting (sorry for the heresy, but the tune is just dull, maudlin, and moralistic).

Merkin had to be delighted with the overflowing crowd to launch their new season. I hope Fort and Batiste also expand their fan-bases as a result.