NYKFF: Out of My Intention (Short)

For suburban drivers, long commutes can be dehumanizing. You might be surrounded by people in traffic, yet hermetically sealed in your car. When traffic is bad, you are even denied the illusion of forward motion. At least that seems to be the case for the unnamed protagonist of Yoo Ji-tae’s Out of My Intention, which screened as part of the NY Korean Film Festival’s short film program.

Traffic is bad, but Lee Dae-yeon’s commuter is in no particular hurry to get home. He would rather face the recriminations of Ok-kyung, his ex-girlfriend, or at least his memories of her. Intention starts as a memory play before veering into the experimental terrain of dreamscapes and the dark recesses of the subconscious. Strangely enough, it is a trip accompanied by an often jazz-influenced soundtrack, composed by Cho Young-wuk.

While the initial music we hear is basically mood music, as the man at the wheel descends into himself, the audience hears sounds reminiscent of groovy 1960’s bachelor pad-style jazz, featuring vibes and electric guitar. It seems wildly out of place, yet there is a dark undercurrent below the effervescence of the vibes. Cho’s score is oddly successful in facilitating the on-screen disorientation taking place. It makes one curious about the musicians who played on it, (but the ending credits were no help to me).

Yoo is better known as an actor in Korea, but he shows an interesting visual sense in Intention. He also gets convincing performances from his actors, with Lee emoting much, but expressing little. Conversely, Cho An has a very showy role, yet must remain a cipher to viewers.

At just over twenty-four minutes Intention is long enough to bear some analysis. While its surreal imagery can be puzzling, its lonely destination is dramatically effective. It is part of a carefully curated short film program that has two more blocks running Monday night at Cinema Village.

NYKFF: Open City

If you feel your pocket being picked in Korea, you might want to just let it go, or risk pulling back a bloody appendage. At least, that is one message of Open City (Korean trailer here), a stylish crime drama screening during the New York Korean Film Festival. Far from Dickensian street urchins, these pick-pockets are stone cold gangsters, but at least one of their ringleaders is also a sultry bombshell.

Baek Jang-mi is getting a gang together. She has two talents, picking pockets and tattoo art. Well, maybe three talents. Her upstart crew sets off a series of turf skirmishes among rivals gangs. When one particularly violent crew gets the drop on Jang-mi, she only survives due to the intervention of Dae-young, an emotionally scarred cop who can handle half a dozen henchmen with ease.

When Jang-mi realizes she was saved by a copper, she ditches him at the nearby coffee-bar. However, their paths soon cross, when Dae-young’s organized crime unit is assigned to take down the marauding pick-pocket gangs. This leads to one of the best cinematic femme-fatale cop seductions in quite some time.

It turns out flatfoot and criminal are connected through associations with Dae-young’s ex-con mother, a former pick-pocket herself. As events come to a head and the driving rain starts to fall, the action sequences become almost operatic, as the weight of family regrets and resentments beget more tragedy. In these scenes, City has almost an old school John Woo vibe going on (but no doves, at least).

City has some fantastic action sequences, the most effective of which are probably straight forward one man vs. many style street-fighting scenes. Lee Sang-gi is a stylish, but not subtle director, and he lets the film get a little overblown at times. Occasionally, the villains veer into over-the-top Dick Tracy territory. However, his leads are great and generate some real heat in their scenes together. Son Ye-jin plays Jang-mi with nuance—a manipulator to be sure, but maybe one with a heart. Then again, perhaps not. Kim Myung-min can administer a beat down with credibility and also convey the anger simmering beneath Dae-young’s stoic façade. However, his unyielding hostility towards his mother eventually becomes tiresome and overwrought.

While its themes of forgiveness and redemption get more than a little heavy-handed, the pacing never suffers for it. City’s mix of high tragedy and slick action results in a distinctively ambitious hard-boiled action-film noir. It screens again during the NYKFF at the Cinema Village Tuesday.

Imaginary Column-Earth-Satellite Dish Live

Imaginary Day Live
By the Pat Metheny Group
Eagle Eye Media

Pat Metheny is unusual among jazz artists in that when he tours, he brings serious gear and can afford guys to carry it all. You can see them setting up for a series of concerts at the Mountain Winery on Imaginary Day Live, the latest live DVD release from the Pat Metheny Group, of course featuring Lyle Mays on piano and keyboards.

Day was part of a concert tour to support the CD of the same title, with the seven of the ten tracks on the DVD drawn from the record’s nine tunes. The original CD cover art was notable for the picto-cryptograms used for the titles, which has been expanded for the DVD, with “Live” becoming egg-pocket watch-Empire State Building-elephant. Day was also notable as Metheny’s most fully realized immersion into jazz-rock territory at the time, which is reflected in the live concert performance.

Metheny seems to prefer starting concerts with a solo performance, which “Into the Dream” essentially is, concluding with some percussive accompaniment. The full band then launches into “Follow Me,” which is vintage Metheny—highly melodic with a medium tempo groove and some nicely harmonized background vocalizing. Probably the best straight-ahead jazz solos come in the following “A Story Within the Story” from Metheny as well as from trumpeter Mark Ledford. The interludes featuring his muted horn and Philip Hamilton’s melodica add a nice flavor to the tune.

Easily the most full-throated jazz-rock excursions are heard on “Imaginary Day” and “The Roots of Coincidence.” The synths on the latter can be a bit overbearing, approaching Floyd levels, but it is a high octane performance (with Mays playing second guitar).

Considering Day represents Metheny’s jazz-rock period, there are a surprising number of moody, introspective tunes, like “Across the Sky,” “Message to a Friend,” and “September Fifteenth.” As heartfelt as Metheny’s performances are, they lose some of their immediacy on video. More successful are the Latinesque “Heat of the Day,” which recalls some of Chick Corea’s Spanish-inspired compositions and features a dramatic solo from Mays, and the up-tempo set-closer “Minuano (Six Eight).”

Day is a very good set that is sure to please his fans, but if you are looking to start your Metheny DVD collection, I would recommend beginning with The Way Up Live, also from Eagle Rock. Not to disrespect Day, but where it is solid, Way Up is outstanding and remains Metheny’s best work to date.

Muddy the Waters

Directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal do not like Pres. Bush, not one little bit. You could probably guess that from their credits as producers of among other films, Fahrenheit 9/11, but in their latest documentary they go out of their way to remind viewers of their low esteem every ten or fifteen minutes, or so. It is unfortunate because it undermines the power and effectiveness of the survivor stories recorded in Trouble the Water (trailer here), opening in New York tomorrow.

Evidently when tragedy strikes, Lessin and Deal’s first instinct is to grab their cameras and start filming, so that is what they did after Katrina lashed through the Gulf Coast. They were not getting much material until they met Kimberley and Scott Roberts, who filmed much of their ordeal during the storm with their recently purchased camcorder.

What the Scotts captured on film was abject chaos. No one in authority showed any leadership, or even had a clue. Perhaps some of the most infuriating footage involves tapes of terrified people calling 9-11 only to be told the NOLA PD were not accepting emergency calls at the time. Unfortunately, Lessin and Deal then disingenuously cut to footage of Pres. Bush. (Had they consulted a high school civics textbook, they would have read that America has a federal system of government, not a unitary one. The local NOLA authorities did not in fact report to the President but to a Democrat mayor, who would later be re-elected.)

This pattern becomes so blatant it distracts from the human drama faced by the Scotts and their family and friends. Was FEMA awful during Katrina? Lord, yes. (Has FEMA ever been praised for their timely response?) Yet many of the faults laid at the feet of Pres. Bush are just as much a function of dysfunctional local governments. For instance, complaints were made of the slowness of Federal money disbursed for home rebuilding efforts. However, the state coordination of those Federal disbursements was outsourced by then Gov. Blanco to a Virginia consulting firm, ICF, in one of the more controversial provisions of her Road Home program. Many speculate the administration of the Road Home, or lack there of, was the deciding factor in her decision not to seek re-election. However, Blanco is a Democrat, so fuller context would not help the narrative Lessin and Deal are spinning.

The Scotts and their friends and family pulled together and survived, but they did lose people close to them. Yet for various reasons they came back to New Orleans, despite finding what appeared to be welcome refuge in Memphis. The spirit and culture of the Crescent City seems to have an enduring hold on its citizens, but there is little sense of the city’s exceptionalism in Trouble. Kimberley Scott is a fairly talented rapper, so her music is logically heard periodically during the film, but aside from a licensed Dr. John rendition of “Wade in the Water,” we hear very little readily identifiable NOLA music in Trouble until late in the film when Free Agents Brass Band play at a protest outside the mayor’s office.

To their credit, Lessin and Deal do not insert themselves into the narrative. However, their treatment of an innocent New Orleans tourism official follows the Michael Moore tactic of targeting average Joe’s for ridicule as surrogates for their larger bogeymen. Are the filmmakers really interested in New Orleans or is it just a handy vehicle to try to score partisan points? One has to wonder watching Trouble. I have talked to many Katrina survivors who had harrowing stories to tell. When you talk about Katrina, it should be about them, not your personal feelings about Iraq. They and the Scotts deserve better than Trouble.

The Gig: Jazz Film to Book Musical

Is a band really a band if they never perform for an audience? It is a relevant question even to professional musicians who dedicate great time and talent to rehearsal bands. For so-called kicks bands, the question can be ever more pointed. In The Gig, screenwriter-director Frank D. Gilroy poignantly dramatized the frustrated dreams of a group of amateur Dixieland jazz musicians who pursue a moment of professional glory through a legit paying gig at a second-rate (at best) Catskills resort.

You probably have not seen The Gig, since it only received spotty distribution when it was released and quickly went out-of-print on VHS, with no DVD afterlife announced as of yet. One of those who did see the film was Douglas J. Cohen, who adapted it into a book musical, which has had various Off-Broadway and out-of-town incarnations, but has yet to crack the Great White Way. The do have a cast recording though, selections from which were performed live at the Lincoln Triangle B&N Monday night.

Gilroy’s movie is an under-rated minor classic of jazz cinema—a valentine to those who play for sheer love, even if their passion exceeds their talent. Used-car dealer Marty Flynn (Wayne Rogers after MASH but before becoming an investment guru) uses his fast-talking skills to get the band booked at Paradise Manor, a resort run by “that Prince of Inn-Keepers” Abe Mitgang, who will explain to you your room isn’t too small, he just uses thick wallpaper.

Eventually Flynn cajoles the reluctant holdouts to take a chance, except their bassist Georgie Pappas, who will be checking into the hospital for a serious procedure, but delivers a carpe diem speech to the band that perfectly expresses the spirit of the film. As a replacement, Flynn hires sight-unseen Marshall Wilson, played by Cleavon Little, who turns out to be an African American jazz modernist who does not think particularly highly of Dixieland or of amateurs taking jobs away from professionals. When they finally play, it turns out Mitgang loves his rimshots but hates the “Biff-Bam-Bang,” as he calls their hot jazz, insisting they stick to sweet society numbers.

At first the gig looks like an utter disaster, but as Wilson starts to gel with the group and their brand of jazz proves popular with patrons, it looks like jazz will carry the day. Then the ugly realities of the music business intrude and the middle-aged musicians learn the hard way what it means to be a professional musician, ending on an appropriate, if bittersweet grace note.

The cast is uniformly excellent, including real-life jazz musician Warren Vaché (with whom the fictional Wilson sometimes tours), who deserved further acting gigs based on his performance as Gil Macrae, a lady’s man who chose to marry into money rather than pursue a promising musical career. Vaché’s cornet is also heard on the soundtrack, supervised by drummer Herb Harris, which also featured clarinetist Kenny Davern, trombonist George Masso, and bassist Milt Hinton. For Dixieland, the Gig Band’s music is swinging and often bluesy, particularly the concluding number. Not only should the film be available on DVD, the soundtrack ought to be available in some format as well.

As of now, if you want a piece of The Gig, only the musical cast album is available. Appropriately, the production heard on disk was produced by the York, which makes its home below St. Peter’s, the jazz church. Despite being about a Dixieland group and employing the instrumentation of a traditional jazz combo, the score for Gig the musical is more show tune than hot jazz. Based on Monday’s performance, it still has its moments. The initial introduction-of-characters number gives way to “Farewell Mere Existence, Hello Jazz,” a plucky little flag-waver that features a neat “fugue” where the band scats their instruments in what could be the most solidly jazz moment of the score.

Cohen sounds reasonably talented as a songwriter and he has excellent taste in source material. The Gig is an understated film that does not rely on star power, but it is still difficult to envision other actors in those roles, even after getting a substantial taste of the stage production Monday. Of course, for most people that will not be an issue should The Gig ever make it to Broadway or a rep theater near them.

Eick’s Door

The Door
By Mathias Eick
ECM Records 2059

A debut release should be a happy occasion, but in this case it is also a reminder of something lost. At the 2007 IAJE convention, Norwegian Mathias Eick was awarded the IJFO International Jazz Award for New Talent, and performed the best concert of the show. Sadly, there will be no more IAJEs, but as consolation, his initial outing as a leader, The Door, releases today from ECM.

The opening title track is a good indication of the deceptive nature of Eick’s music. It starts as an open, spacious vehicle for the leader’s lyrical trumpet, but the rhythm section subtly locks in, until drummer Audun Kleive kicks the intensity up to a crescendo, only to fall off for a brief mournful coda from Eick.

Simultaneously stately and moody, “Cologne Blues” benefits from the supportive aural textures added by Stian Carstensen on pedal steel guitar, an instrument rarely heard in jazz aside from Buddy Emmons’ dabblings outside of his Nashville sessions. Together with Kleive’s spooky percussive accents and an inventively structured solo from Jon Balke on piano, it is an intriguing track. It also shows Eick’s range, from breathy vibrato to strong clarion high notes.

Having penned each track on The Door, Eick shows a tremendous facility for melody, like the hypnotically catchy “October,” which inspires a surprisingly swinging solo from Balke. Eick skips a month, following it with the impressionistically lovely “December,” a remarkably accessible example of jazz trumpet that should woe fans of Enrico Rava, Tomasz Stanko, and maybe even late pre-electric Miles.

“Williamsburg” is another haunting melody, but it never flags in energy, thanks to the strong pulse laid down by the rhythm section, particularly bassist Audun Erlien. It might feature Door’s strongest solo flights from Eick and Balke, again cutting loose for a playfully swing-centered statement.

With The Door, Eick suggests dualistic rhetoric: spacious yet rhythmic, lyric yet forceful, Nordic cool but swinging. It is a session that really pulls you in on initial listening, and then stays in heavy rotation in the CD changer. It turns out IAJE may not have been good with money (to say the least), but they did have good judgment in other areas. The Door represents a great start fulfilling the promise of Eick’s auspicious American debut at their final New York show.

Anatema: Choosing Life in Kosovo

Anatema
Directed by Agim Sopi
Vanguard Cinema

The horrors committed by the Serbian former Communists and their Bosnian Serb allies were horrendous, and the Free World’s feckless response was a scandal, which has yet to be adequately captured on film. The Hunting Party had some intriguing moments, but was undercut by a weak lead performance and displayed more interest in criticizing NATO for a lack of zealousness pursuing war criminals than dramatizing the actual crimes. Though not perfect, writer-director Agim Sopi’s Anatema (trailer here), now available on DVD, serves as a valuable corrective, shining a light on Serbian war crimes, in this case committed in Kosovo.

Sopi’s original intention was to document war crimes occurring in Kosovo with a documentary, but when the Serbian army confiscated his film, he was forced to shift his efforts to a narrative film. One of the unsettling aspects of Anatema is that it looks like its fictional crimes could have been filmed at the sights of previous real life atrocities. Those acts of evil dominate the first part of the film, as David Schwartz, an American journalist, and Ema Berisha, his Kosovar translator, attempt to save a little girl shot in the stomach by Serbian forces, but are prevented by Serbian officers making absurdist sport of the situation. After surviving the subsequent brutality of the Serbs, Schwartz broadcasts his report, only to be recalled by his network due to the impending NATO intervention. He and his field producer want to take Berisha with them, but she insists on returning to her home in Pristine.

Despite the temporary joy of a reunion with her fiancé, leading to their long postponed wedding, Pristine quickly turns into a nightmare. The Serbian forces occupy the city, deliberating using organized rape as a tool of terror and pacification, before expelling the survivors to Albania. On her return to Kosovo, Berisha is rejected by her husband and spurned by most of her friends. Nobody wants her to keep her baby (which for all she knows could be the product of her wedding night). The Kosovars do not want her to keep the presumed product of Serbian war crimes and issue of Serbian blood. The Serbs do not want such babies to survive as evidence of their crimes. Berisha is determined not to punish Ana, her unborn daughter, for the crimes of others. Indeed, Anatema (Ana + Ema) may well be the most pro-life film ever made.

Berisha is forced to temporarily give up Ana for adoption, but when she returns to claim her, the agency is gone. She tracks Ana to a former monastery appropriated by the old Communists and noveau mobsters trafficking in babies, both for profit and disposing of war crimes evidence.

Anatema is at heart a mother’s story and as such is wholly dependent on its lead actress. Unlike Richard Gere in Hunting Party, Lumnie Sopi is terrific as Ema. Unfortunately, many of the supporting actors are considerably weaker, although Blerim Gjoci is likeably credible as the sympathetic Kosovar Commander Shpati. Director Sopi truly takes the audience to occupied Kosovo, rightly forcing viewers to confront the reality of the war crimes committed there. However, he can be a bit heavy-handed, as when he shows a stampeding crowd trampling a baby’s doll. Still, his portrayals of Serbian brutality and the cluelessness of the international policing forces are infuriatingly effective, all of which is ultimately held together by an impressive lead performance.

Vinyl Love for Tenor Classics

The music business is hurting. Hard copy sales are down across the board, with one exception: new vinyl. According to the RIAA, new vinyl sales were up 36% last year, while CDs were down 17%. Of course, CDs still had about 500 times the sales of new vinyl the industry group quickly pointed out, for some reason eager to pour cold water on vinyl’s good press. Ordinarily I do not tell people their business, but it seems to me, the RIAA should be embracing a potential vinyl renaissance. Certainly, LPs are not going to muscle out CDs or downloads, but if a significant number of people starting choosing the LP as their preferred media vehicle, it would be a godsend to the industry. After all, CDs can be burned, files can be copies, and tapes can be dubbed, but there are not a lot of people out there who can press records.

Some labels have re-embraced vinyl, including Concord Records, the current custodians of the classic Prestige and Riverside catalogs, who has been heavily promoting their Collectors Corner as a place to buy new vinyl pressings of their classic jazz releases (the availability on other major online retailers appears spotty). Listening to some of the new some of their classic records repressed in the format they were intended for is a treat.

Recorded in 1961, Eastern Sounds was Yusef Lateef’s fullest exploration of Eastern musical forms up to that point, yet he still kept it firmly grounded in the jazz idiom. LP’s in general sound better than their CDs counterparts, and Eastern is a good example. The sparkling notes of the opening “The Plum Blossom” really jumps out at the listener. Here Lateef plays the Chinese globular flute and bassist Ernie Farrow plays the rebat (or rabaab), sounding like a cross between the bass and the mbira. With vinyl’s richer sound, you can actually hear Farrow’s bass on tracks like “Blues for the Orient” and you get the full auditory sensation of Lateef’s warm tenor goodness on “Don’t Blame Me.” (While Farrow is largely remembered for his work with Lateef, he was active on the Detroit scene as a sometimes leader, and according to his half-sister, Alice Coltrane, he certainly had an impact on jazz history by introducing her to the music.)

There are not many extant recordings of Monk’s group while Coltrane was a member, which is why the 2005 discovery of the 1957 Carnegie Hall concert was such a find. The logically titled Thelonius Monk with John Coltrane was one of their few recording sessions we have always known. Actually cobbled together from two sessions, but it is no less rewarding for it, Monk with consists entirely of the leader’s originals, including the concluding piano solo, “Functional,” a starkly beautiful blues, which makes one wonder why this tune is so under-recorded. While Coltrane was at this point still getting used to playing with Monk, he sounds born to play the achingly tender “Ruby, My Dear.” On the large ensemble tracks, Coleman Hawkin’s full-bodied swinging tenor is totally in-synch with his supposedly more modern colleagues.

Coltrane really hit his stride during his late Atlantic and early Impulse years, but there are plenty of great moments on his Prestige sides. Soultrane is certainly a solid outing, backed up by two thirds of the Miles David rhythm section of Red Garland and Paul Chambers, with Arthur Taylor filling the drum chair. On vinyl, you can really hear and feel Chambers’ bass on a track like the opening “Good Bait,” which I’m sure my neighbors agree is very cool. Soultrane effectively showcases Coltrane’s expressive range, particularly striking on “Theme for Ernie,” a tribute to the late Ernie Henry, an alto player best remembered for his sideman work with Monk and Dizzy Gillespie.

And what possibly needs be said about Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus, probably the most analyzed single “non-concept” record ever? With the introduction of “St. Thomas,” what would become his signature tune, and “Blue 7,” arguably the most acclaimed solo in jazz history, the significance of Colossus is beyond debate. As an LP, its iconic blue-washed cover image of Rollins actually looks as dramatic as intended. Rollins has a reputation for preferring live performance to the studio setting, but his playing on Colossus is exceptional throughout, like the gorgeously lyrical “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Again, you get the full auditory effect of Doug Watkins’ bass and Max Roach’s bass drum.

It is nice to see a label promoting its classic catalog on vinyl. The sound is richer and the overall experience is more tactile. One can savor the full cover art as it was meant to be seen, rather than as a cocktail napkin-sized insert. Frankly, in my experience CDs are just as apt to scratch and skip as records, so the clear advantage goes to vinyl.

Tibetan Night at Two Boots

NBC has been dubbed “Nothing But Communism” for the fawning coverage of the Chinese government seen during its Olympic broadcasts, so a documentary reminding the world that there is in fact a place called Tibet, which happens to be occupied by China, would seem timely indeed. Screening Saturday night at Two Boots’ Pioneer Theater, the documentary Dancing at Amdo (trailer here) attempts to examine the Tibetan occupation dispassionately from all sides, but in doing so, it leaves many obvious questions unasked.

Amdo starts with historical context, but seems to accept the proposition that pre-Communist Tibet was a feudal society. A local CP official’s assertion to that effect is essentially accepted at face value, which becomes a pattern throughout the film. Evidently there is an ongoing scholarly debate regarding the nature and extent of Tibetan serfdom, and the only academic involved in the film, Dr. Melvyn Goldstein, holds to the position of extreme serfdom. What sounds like a solely academic controversy has greater significance, since Tibet’s presumed history of serfdom has been used to justify the Chinese occupation.

The filmmakers do contend that the Tibetan government in exile is certainly more progressive than whatever may have preceded it, giving them credit for the democratic election of their prime minister. Also, there is no attempt to whitewash the crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution against Tibetan culture. According to the Venerable Amchok Rinpoche, the director of the government in exile’s archives, of the estimated six thousand monasteries existing in Tibet before the Gang of Four’s ascension, “at least 70 percent, seven zero, 70 percent are totally gone.”

In general though, Amdo seems all too willing to let the words of the current Chinese government pass unchallenged. After showing some vintage Cold War cartoons to mock American anti-Communist attitudes, we hear from Ye Xiaowen, the director general for the State Administration for Religious Affairs tell us: “Over the past few years, my office has done a lot of things to protect the Chinese people’s freedom of religious belief.”

That there is even such an agency for “Religious Affairs” is in itself chilling. Considering there are only five officially authorized religions in China and each is directly controlled by that agency, Ye’s statement is quite a jaw-dropper. Even if conditions have improved for Tibetan Buddhists, Chinese Christians would surely take issue with his assurances, and regardless how one feels about Falun Gong practitioners, there is little question they have been persecuted for their beliefs. Far from challenging Ye, we see stills of the filmmakers as Ye praises them, saying: “You are now looking at China through your camera and you are trying to see the truth.”

While at times informative, the greatest problem with Amdo is the lack of independent critical voices at such junctures. Yes, we do hear from the Dalai Lama and other members of the government in exile, like the venerable archivist, who seems to personify wisdom, and is allowed to rebut Ye’s claims late in the film. However, with their homeland occupied by the Chinese, there are very legitimate political and diplomatic reasons for them to be circumspect in their interviews.

The strongest scenes in Amdo document the attempts to keep Tibetan culture alive, through the institutions established by the Dalai Lama and the government in exile. Several officials talk about the distinctions between a living, dynamic art and that which is maintained on life-support in museum-style preservation programs. We also hear about traditional Tibetan productions rewritten by the Chinese to suit their propaganda purposes. Although the results are mixed, in general it seems legitimate contemporary Tibetan culture still remains quite vital.

With the Dalai Lama now accepting the possibility of Hong Kong style Communist rule in Tibet, the region might be reaching a turning point. The richness of Tibetan culture is nicely highlighted in Amdo, so its continued survival is a very real concern. However, the film should not be one’s primary source for historical and geo-political background on the conflict. It screens tomorrow night at Two Boots.

Joy House: Noir and Swinging

Joy House (Les Felins)
Directed by René Clément
Koch Lorber

René Clément’s career had its ups-and-downs, but his collaborations with Alain Delon were high points. Their first, Purple Noon, established Delon as an international star. The second, Joy House (original trailer here), is a sophisticated film noir that ought to have been included in either the MoMA’s Jazz Score series or the Film Forum’s French Crime Wave retrospective. Happily though, it is now available on DVD.

Delon plays Marc, an amoral gigolo, which is a promising start to any film. Dumb enough to romance the wife of an American mobster, he quickly finds he is not safe, even on the Riviera. Needing a hiding place, he takes work as the chauffeur of Barbara Hill, a reclusive American widow living alone with her niece Melinda, or so they tell Marc. He quickly suspects there is another player somehow involved in the Hill household—someone who probably played a role in Barbara’s bereavement. After all, it is impossible for Marc to believe the beautiful widow, played by Lola Albright, is not enjoying the attentions of a man. He would certainly volunteer for the position, but it is the niece (a pre-Barbarella sex-kittenish Jane Fonda) who repeatedly throws herself at him, leading to something more complicated than a love triangle (a rhombus maybe).

Delon’s adventurer might not be particularly likeable, but he is not an idiot, immediately recognizing all is not right with his employers. Lola Albright, of Peter Gunn fame, brings a surprising vulnerability to her black widow role. As Melinda, Fonda is reasonably credible, conveying the danger lurking beneath her coy surface. What really makes the film enjoyable though, is some of the hardboiled dialogue. At one point the European contact for the American gangsters tells them he is Corsican. “Well, that’s not your fault,” one replies.

Titled Les Felins in the French version, there is a pronounced feline theme, with the women literally showing claws at times. Clément creates a sense of desire turning claustrophobic, heightened by Jean André’s production design, which really makes Barabara’s castle-like villa another character in the drama.

Adding a sultry flavor is Lalo Schifrin’s groovy little crime jazz score. Recorded with members of the Paris Opera Orchestra as well as trumpeter Roger Guérin, who also played on Martial Solal’s soundtrack for Breathless, and bassist Pierre Michelot, who played on Miles Davis’s Elevator to the Scaffold soundtrack and was a member of the house band seen in Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight, Schifrin’s soundtrack was only just issued in full four years ago. However, his main theme, “The Cat” took on a life of its own, with Jimmy Smith, Claude Nougaro, Peggy Lee, and Schifrin himself recording cover versions of it at the time.

The new DVD version includes both the English and French language versions, and they are not precisely the same, with the French being a bit longer, giving a bit more context, as when Marc and Barbara spar during their initial interview. In either version, House is a clever crime story with a cool swinging sixties vibe. Having taught it in a jazz and film class as an example of Schifrin’s film work, I am happy to see it readily available again.

Chabrol’s Cut

In 1906 Henry K. Thaw murdered his wife’s lover, Beaux-Arts architect Stanford White. That crime and the resulting trial of the six year old century have inspired several literary and dramatic adaptations. While E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime and the subsequent film and musical are the best known, Claude Chabrol’s latest psychological drama also takes its initial kernel of inspiration from the White case. Opening Friday in New York, A Girl Cut in Two (trailer here) shares some elements of his great crime films, but has more in common with his psycho-sexually charged films like The Pleasure Party.

Charles Saint-Denis is a man who extracts as much pleasure as he can out of life. He is a successful, well-regarded novelist, with a low-stress wife on very good terms with his ambiguously affectionate editor. When he happens to meet Gabrielle Deneige, young woman building a television career on being cute rather than deep, he takes advantage of what chance offers. However, as he lures her deeper into 9 ½ Weeks style debauchery, she becomes more emotionally attached to the older man, which obviously will not do at all. After finding herself abruptly dropped by her lover, Deneige eventually succumbs to the advances of a conspicuously unstable, but filthy rich suitor, Paul Gaudens.

While Cut is a crime film of a sort, with Saint-Denis standing in for Stanford White, it is all about the build-up to the murder, with the scandalous trial coming as anti-climax, before a head-scratching denouement that only seems to serve the purpose of literally illustrating the film’s title (it is not what you might think, so do not consider that a spoiler).

Chabrol is a great director, and Cut hardly suggests it is time for him to retire. He handles the film’s adult themes quite deftly, conveying precisely what manner of lurid behavior is going on behind closed doors, without taking viewers inside to revel in the depravity. Chabrol also still shows a gift for crafting intense scenes, here abetted by Edouardo Serra’s cinematography and Matthieu Chabrol’s music, which both heighten the hot house atmosphere. He elicits some strong performances, particularly from François Berléand as the world-weary hedonist Saint-Denis and son Thomas Chabrol as a cold-blooded defense attorney.

Unfortunately, the screenplay has serious issues. Motivations are often vague at best, which creates problems of credibility. Five minutes with Gaudens should be sufficient to convince anyone he is bad news, yet Deneige marries him, albeit out of spite for Saint-Denis, only to be shocked by his capacity for violence later. Also, Cut places far too much significance on her name, which translates as “the snow,” as in pure as the driven.

Chabrol is still a world-class director. He just misfired in Cut. While there are flashes of his masterful skill in the film, compared to the rest of his filmography, it is a bit of a disappointment. It opens Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

Anita O’Day’s Life

1959’s Gene Krupa Story might be a flawed film, but there is a great scene of Anita O’Day singing “Memories of You” at an after hours party. “Who’s the snake charmer,” Sal Mineo asks as Krupa. His femme fatale girlfriend responds: “Anita O’Day. Not bad, if you like talent.” While brief, its one of my favorite O’Day clips, and one of the few not included in a new O’Day documentary opening Friday in New York and LA. Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer (trailer here), draws from extensive archival performance and interview footage, focusing squarely on O’Day’s music rather than her melodramatic life.

O’Day’s first real national exposure did indeed come with Krupa’s band, where she raised eyebrows by playfully interacting onstage with the African-American trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Then following a brief stint with Woody Herman, she reluctantly signed on with Stan Kenton’s outfit, where she tried valiantly to get him to swing more, as she explains in a hilarious segment. Despite Kenton’s terminally whitebread style, O’Day was able to make silk purses out of his novelty numbers like “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine,” before striking out on her own.

Unfortunately, O’Day’s life is nearly synonymous with chaos, with her addictions all too public. Arguably, her greatest talent was for getting involved with the wrong men, yet she kept plugging away at the jazz life. She was commencing yet another comeback shortly before her death, with the help of her final manager, Robbie Cavolina, who co-directed the documentary with Ian McCrudden.

We do hear various interviewers ask the requisite questions about drugs and other madness, which she answers honestly and directly. However, true to the jazz ethos, she appears more interested in the present than the dead past. Like O’Day, Cavolina and McCrudden seem more interested in O’Day’s music than the details of her habit, which is quite refreshing.

Too many music documentaries seem to lack confidence in their subjects, giving the audience quick performance sound-bites, only to have talking heads speak over them, telling us how brilliant it is. Here, Cavolina and McCrudden let us listen to many complete performances (or at least complete vocals), including vintage television appearances and rarely seen Japanese concert footage. Of course, they also include her renditions of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Tea for Two” at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival immortalized in Bert Stern’s documentary, Jazz on a Summer’s Day.

By putting the spotlight on O’Day’s music, the filmmakers illustrate to the audience why they should care about the vocalist, but they include enough of her ups and downs to establish the dramatic arc of her life. It is a welcome approach I was happy to see for a change. If viewers want to plumb the dark side of her life more they can certainly consult her autobiography High Times, Hard Times, but you will probably know her better through her music, like “Georgia Brown” at Newport, or even “Tears Flowed Like Wine” with Kenton, which does not sound so funny in retrospect (if it ever really did before). Anita O’Day is one of the more enjoyable jazz documentaries I have seen in a while, and I have seen a lot. It opens Friday at Cinema Village in Manhattan.

Mazur’s Elixir

Elixir
By Marilyn Mazur with Jan Garbarek
ECM 1962

Someone once dubbed Miles Davis’s surviving sidemen “the Sons of Miles,” but where would that leave Marilyn Mazur, who played on the trumpeter’s arguably last great recording, Aura, and toured with him for nearly half a decade? Basically, doing her thing, with musicians of the caliber of Gil Evans, Eberhard Weber, and Jan Garbarek, with whom she recorded Elixir, a set of solo and duet performances, for her percussion and his reeds.

With the opening track, “Clear,” Mazur establishes the mysterious nature of the music to follow, but Garbarek’s tenor is surprisingly warm and tender. Indeed, her percussion seems to propel him towards some of his most explicitly jazz sounding performances of recent years. Mazur supplies “Dunun Song” a strong groove that has Garbarek swinging surprisingly hard on tenor. “Joy Chant” is even more upbeat, with bright tonal colors produced by Garbarek’s soprano and Mazur’s percussive accoutrements, sounding almost like a steel pan drum here.

Mazur and Garabarek cover quite a bit of ground in their varied set. “Mountain Breath” is a brief exotic pastoral for flute, whereas “Totem Dance” is a hypnotic trance-dance. With Garbarek on tenor, it almost suggests some of Charles Lloyd’s more mystical music. Only “Winter Wish,” another tenor feature, has the sort of austere, Nordic vibe one might expect of a Garbarek session on ECM. Mazur has played on a number of the Norwegian reedman’s sessions, which evidently has led to a musical empathy of a very high order. They sound perfectly in-synch throughout Elixir, conveying an easy, unforced manner.

Mazur’s percussion solos interspersed throughout Elixir are quite evocative and even melodic. Pieces like “Metal Dew,” “Mother Drum,” and “Creature Walk” have a strong rhythmic pulse that is easy to get caught up in. Whereas, improvisations like “Sheep Dream” and “The Siren in the Well” eerily suggest scenes of nature at night.

Loose and improvisational, Elixir still holds together quite cohesively. While spacious and moody, it should not be dismissed as experimental or self-consciously intellectual. Indeed, Mazur and Garbarek often produce the joyful sounds of an accessible brand of jazz.

The Music Lesson

The Music Lesson
By Victor L. Wooten
Berkley tradepaper original

Many musicians have a profoundly spiritual side. Others are very shrewd attending to matters of this world, without it dampening their musical creativity (Benny Goodman comes to mind in this category). Although Victor Wooten has experienced significant commercial success as an electric bassist, his book The Music Lesson suggests he leans more towards the former than the latter.

Originally independently published, Lesson has now found a home with a New York publisher, that might have been more attracted to its spiritual dimension than its musical lineage. (No disrespect to Tony Levin, but his quote seems a dubious choice for the front cover, rather than that of the late great Michael Brecker, a decision Wooten would not have had input on.) Lesson itself is a book that defies easy classification, but it might best be compared to books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, that try to teach spiritual lessons through an ostensibly novel-like format. In fact, Wooten immediately discounts the narrative to follow, attempting to refocus readers on his actual lessons. Of the teacher we are to meet, he writes:

“I never found out who this guy really was or where he came from. The more time goes by, the more I start to think that maybe, just maybe, he came from my imagination, from some unused portion of my mind, where he’s now gone back to live.” (p. 6)

He is talking about Michael—just Michael—a large man of unusual dress, indeterminate ethnicity, and seemingly endless musical ability, who one day barges in on Wooten, or the narrator, to give him musical guidance. “Notes are overrated” he tells the bassist, devoting his instructions to neglected musical elements, like dynamics and space. (p. 41) Michael’s pedagogical techniques veer close to Zen-like koans, and he has an annoying preference for answering questions with questions. Wooten underestimate how irritating this approach can be writing: “I hated it when he answered my questions with my own questions, and he knew it.” (p. 92) Frankly, some of these exchanges in Lesson made me want to scream.

Despite his excessive Zen, Wooten is quite a fluid writer. He makes his points clearly, and at times Lesson drifts into the arena of practical advice. Some of Michael’s performance lessons sound particularly on-point, as when he and the narrator subbed in a Nashville bar band. Some of Lesson’s strongest passages describe that gig, and Michael’s tricks to bolster the soloists:

“I brought the volume way down and [the drummer] Ralph followed. Michael stopped playing chords and went to a single note rhythm that really created space. It was then that I realized what we were doing. We were creating a hole right in the middle of the music that allowed the soloist to stand there out in the open . . . The whole audience stopped what they were doing and started listening to the saxophone solo. It was brilliant.” (p. 140)

Through Michael and his friends, the narrator has a number of musical epiphanies. Ultimately, the subtitle “A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music” might be misleading. More than using music for spiritual growth, Lesson suggests spiritual growth is necessary to serve music, a femininized universal power greater than mere notes, according to Wooten.

How you respond to Lesson, will probably depend on how New Agey you were coming in. If you gravitate to the Enlightenment thinkers, rather than the Romantics, the mysticism will likely become quickly tiring, but if nothing else, the book will provide insight into Wooten and his music, if you happen to be a fan.

DB’s Heroes

Heroes
By David Benoit
Peak Records

Paying tribute to those who came before you is jazz tradition worthy of continued observance. It preserves the sense of ancestral veneration and apostolic succession unique to jazz. David Benoit’s Heroes is the second so-titled piano tribute CD I have heard in recent years, the first coming from Roger Kellaway. While Benoit’s is sure to receive more attention because of the oftentimes smoothish artist’s greater commercial stature, it is also more likely to face a more grudging critical reception form the same reason, even though both Heroes essentially come from the same place with the same motivation.

Benoit starts with Dave Grusin’s “Mountain Dance,” arguably a classic of contemporary-crossover jazz, wisely hewing close to the sparkling original melody. There are a few of those chime-like smooth jazz flourishes throughout Heroes, but they do not sound out of place here. Benoit’s interpretation of “Human Nature,” made famous by Michael Jackson is also reasonably credible, but the smooth jazz sweetenings are distracting and R&B backbeat gets obtrusive.

The pop covers continue with Elton John’s “Your Song.” The leader turns in an elegant solo, but the rendition still falls short of Pietro Tonolo’s recent version with Gil Goldstein and Steve Swallow. The Doors’ “Light My Fire” is probably the most successful pop song of the outing, benefiting from some Latin percussion and a solo from the leader that digs down into the funk bag.

In his liner notes, Benoit identifies Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father” as “the first jazz tune I learned by ear,’ and his affection for it is still apparent in an arrangement faithful to the original. When Benoit has periodically taken breaks from more commercial work for straighter jazz projects, Bill Evans has usually somehow been an inspiration, and that is true on Heroes as well. A lithe but sensitive swinger, “Waltz for Debbie” might be his finest keyboard work of the session.

The sole original of the set is “A Twisted Little Etude,” a tribute to Dave Brubeck that serves as a prelude to “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” It swings pretty hard, featuring a groovy guest spot for Andy Suzuki on alto and brief echoes of Joe Morello’s classic “Take Five” solo from drummer Jamey Tate. Suzuki stays for “Rondo,” giving it an edgier sound than typically heard.

While Heroes is somewhat uneven, there is a certain logic to its inconsistency, with the jazz tunes sounding jazzy and the pop tunes poppish (to varying degrees). The second half is clearly the strongest, with Benoit showing legit jazz chops while paying homage to the likes of Silver, Evans, and Brubeck, for which he deserves some credit, particularly if he can bring more ears to these artists.

Jazz Score: Le Menace

If you have seen Wages of Fear, you know there will be trouble whenever Yves Montand gets behind the wheel of a big rig. In Alain Corneau’s Le Menace, the big trucks come accompanied by a deadly love triangle and a nifty jazz score by Gerry Mulligan, which is why it is screening as part of MoMA’s Jazz Score film series.

Henri Savin might be considered a man of the world. A French trucking manager with an extra lover and sketchy past, he does not have much faith in the law. Savin has broken off his affair with Dominique Montlaur, the owner of his trucking firm which bears her name, but she refuses to accept that it is over. In desperation, she ambushes Julie Manet, Savin’s pregnant younger lover, first attempting bribery, than resorting to physical violence in hopes of running her off. When all else fails, she does a header off a cliff, inadvertently creating serious trouble for Savin and her rival—a measure of revenge she would not live to savor.

As the police investigate her death, suspicion falls on Manet, the last person to see Montlaur alive. When Savin’s advice of denial lands her behind bars facing a murder rap, Savin takes it on himself to clear her name, by framing himself. He has no intention of sacrificing himself though, expecting to flee to his old Canadian stomping grounds once he has finished manipulating the plodding coppers. While in France, Menace follows in the tradition of Clouzot thrillers like Diabolique, but when it moves to Canada, it veers into Duel territory. Let’s just say this is indeed a film about big trucks.

The effect of Mulligan’s rich, warm baritone saxophone underscoring the sight of Savin’s eighteen-wheeler rumbling over the open road is surprisingly effective, giving a lush 70’s feel to the film, in the best sense. Mulligan composed the score during what was considered his fusion period, due to his use of moog and synthesizer effects. Compared with much of the era’s music though, his score is still relatively straight-ahead jazz.

Dave Grusin, no stranger himself to soundtrack work (Three Days of the Condor, The Firm), provided an organizational assist and is heard on keys throughout. Jay Leonhart and Jack Six shared the bass duties, joining either Bobby Rosengarden or Michael DiPasqua on drums, with various keyboard players augmenting the ensemble. The soundtrack, together with unused themes, was issued under the title Watching & Waiting, which holds up well when heard apart from the film’s visuals.

Menace is the sort of naturalistic crime drama European filmmakers used to excel at. It might have benefited from a little tightening (and the slip-shod subtitles do not do it any favors), but over all, Menace is a clever film, well served both by Mulligan’s music, as well as Corneau’s judicious use of silence. It screens again on Monday.

Jazz Score: TV Land

Although Hollywood never really embraced jazz, it did find its way into many film noir pictures, signifying the sultry dangers of the urban underworld. Not surprisingly then, it also underscored some late 1950’s television detective shows, samples of which are screening at the MoMA as part of the Jazz Score retrospective.

Probably the best known and most successful example of the jazz-scored television series was Peter Gunn (NBC 1958-1961). Featuring Henry Mancini themes performed by top West Coast jazz artists, Gunn (sample opening here) dedicated a relatively large portion of its brief twenty-four minutes to music. For instance, in “The Comic,” the episode MoMA selected, trumpeter Pete Candoli gets about a minute of screen time for a solo and a brief speaking part. In another episode, “Keep Smiling,” Shelley Manne and His Men, including Joe Gordon and Herb Geller, get about a minute and a half for a complete breakneck number. Also, Gunn’s girlfriend Edie Hart, played by Lola Albright, is frequently heard crooning at Mother’s nightclub.

Gunn’s plots were simple due to time constraints. They usually involved Gunn, played by the square-jawed Craig Stevens, getting knocked unconscious by accomplices of the criminal he was tailing, only to be saved at the last minute by Lt. Jacoby, whose officers followed him, hoping to be lead straight to the perp. However, the show had a very stylishly noir look, nicely directed, usually by either series creator Blake Edwards or veteran television director Boris Sagal.

Less successful, Johnny Staccato (NBC 1959-1960) is often considered an imitation of Gunn, but it had it moments. Starring John Cassavetes as the title character, a former jazz pianist turned P.I., Staccato might have been moodier than Gunn, but it had similar elements. In this case, the jazz influenced composer was Elmer Bernstein, and the setting was Waldo’s jazz club. West coast jazz artists were also frequently heard in the background, as in “The Naked Truth,” where the house band included Candoli again, with guitarist Barney Kessel, Shelley Manne on drums, and Red Norvo on vibes.

The real oddball in the Jazz Score program is Blues for Trumpet and Koto, a one-hour stand-alone television drama, starring Quincy Jones as himself and inexplicably featuring performances by Al Hirt and his Dixieland combo. Jones is preparing for a Japanese tour and essentially shanghais his old lovesick compatriot Peter Clay to write special arrangements for the event, including the title piece. There are some pretty swinging big band performances of standards like “Night in Tunisia” and Clay’s special composition, from what appears to be Nobuo Hara’s Sharps and Flats, augmented with some members of Q’s big band.

Unfortunately, the acting and story brought forth forgivably audible groans from the audience. Anthony George would have a long career in television on series like Dark Shadows (he also had a supporting role in Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends with Craig Stevens), but he is frankly terrible as Clay, and his vocal number, which was barely more than the Rex Harrison-style speaking on pitch, was a complete mistake. For his part, Jones appears to have come out of the Burt Reynolds show-the-audience-how-much-fun-you’re-having school of acting. Still, it is a true rarity with some appealing big band music that is unlikely to turn up on DVD or cable anytime soon.

Altogether, this Jazz Score program represents a decent selection of jazz television scoring. Probably, the most notable omission was Mr. Broadway (opening credits here), which featured some great Dave Brubeck themes, but also starred Stevens as Broadway press agent Mike Bell, so it might have seemed too similar to Gunn. Also, the short-lived car-racing series Straightaway, was all but unwatchable, but featured the music of Maynard Ferguson’s band at height of its power. Of what MoMA did program, Gunn and Staccato hold up reasonably well as noir entertainment, and the novelty of Koto is at least worth a look. They screen together again on Sunday.

Bluesman: the Complete Twelve Bars

Bluesman: a Twelve-Bar Graphic Novel By Rob Vollmar and Pablo G. Callejo Comics Lit/NBM

Much irony and considerable tragedy have come out of Hope, Arkansas, a particularly inhospitable town if you happened to be an itinerant blues musician in the 1920’s. In Hope, bluesmen Lem Taylor and Avery “Ironwood” Malcott do not have to look for trouble—it finds them readily enough in Vollmar and Callejo’s graphic novel Bluesman, now collected in a complete edition.

Taylor is the younger of the musical partners, a guitarist who often calls upon his strict religious upbringing when a judicious hymn is needed to get out of a tight spot. Though Ironwood is older than Taylor, in some respects the piano player is more impulsive and less disciplined. When they play together though, the music is always good.

 Jukes could be down right deadly, especially for a musician nobody in town would miss should they disappear, but the traveling bluesmen land a gig at a joint run by an honest proprietor named Shug. However, a waitress at his juke catches Ironwood’s eye, and that leads to trouble with an escalating body count. It turns out she was the kept woman of the son of Col. Bilyeu, a powerful white landowner who fancies himself above and outside the law. When Ironwood and the young Bilyeu are killed in a night of madness, Taylor finds himself on the run from the lynch mob. However, he might have an ally in Sheriff Hal Beasely, a legitimate lawman who does not turn a blind eye to vigilante justice.

 Dark and moody, Callejo’s art depicts Vollmar’s Southern Gothic story as film noir. It definitely taps into dark recesses of the Blues world that made legends out of Robert Johnson and Peetie “the Devil’s Son-in-Law” Wheatstraw. Vollmar has his period details spot-on and his tale of the blues is surprisingly moving, concluding on a note of sacrifice and redemption made possible by the reawakening of Taylor’s faith. Although, Taylor’s preacher father is depicted as a stern caricature of Christianity, there is indeed a positive, even vital role for Christian faith in Taylor’s story.

Ending on a note of real grace, Bluesman’s coda is a love letter to those who always live in hope: record collectors who search for mystical disks, like a fabled Lem Taylor pressing. At one point, Bluesman had been optioned for the screen, but little was heard of it, despite Hollywood’s craze for all things comic book. Tantalizingly, Keb’ ‘Mo was attached to supply the music and play a supporting role, which was an encouraging sign. He was quite good in a small part in Honeydripper, the last previous big-screen juke joint movie at that time.

Perhaps the best that can be said of Bluesman is that it seems to have a good ear for the music it depicts. Though based in Little Rock, Eastern Star Records is clearly inspired by Paramount, and Taylor’s repertoire sounds legitimate for the era, including the ever-malleable “House of the Rising Sun.” Bluesman represents the high end of contemporary graphic novels, pulling readers through at a breakneck pace, but concluding elegantly on an elegiac note. Very highly recommended, it is one of the best musically-themed graphic novels in recent years.

Bottle Shock and Awe

It’s the U.S.A. versus the French. What else do you need to know? Of course, the French are accustomed to defeat, but this one probably stung worse than their long history of military losses. This time the field of battle was a blind wine tasting, pitting the upstart wines of California against the best the French had to offer. The results stunned the world, as portrayed in director Randall Miller’s Bottle Shock (trailer here), opening in New York and other selected cities today.

Based on true events, Shock dramatizes the 1976 competition organized by British expat Steven Spurrier, played by Alan Rickman, to promote his struggling wine emporium. Ostensibly a friendly competition to celebrate the American bicentennial, Spurrier assumed a well publicized rout of the California wines would appeal to French chauvinism, creating good will for his store as a result. However, much to his dismay, those California wines were actually quite palatable.

On his Napa Valley scouting trip, Spurrier meets Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman), the owner of the Chateau Montelena winery. After a reasonably successful corporate career, Barrett is pursuing his dream of making the finest chardonnay possible. In doing so, he has the dubious help of his dirty, unkempt hippy son Bo, played by Chris Pine. The younger Barrett only has one ambition, to sleep with their attractive intern, and even on this front, he is under-achieving badly. Can Bo get serious long enough to save the family winery? Have you seen a movie before?

Shock takes its name from the temporary damage sustained by wine when shipped as cargo. It is one of the many potential pitfalls avoided by the California wines on the road to Paris in a fairly clever screenplay. However, we get a little too much of knuckle-headed Bo and his pals, at the expense of the more appealing adult characters. Indeed, Shock boasts a cast of actor’s actors who always turn in interesting performances, including Pullman, Rickman, and Dennis Farina, as an American expat who patronizes Spurrier’s establishment.

In many ways, Shock is a refreshing story. In truth, the patriotic aspect of American underdogs taking on French snobs is actually played down, but it is in there. More pronounced is the spirit of camaraderie and friendly competition that prevails among the California wineries. At its core though, Shock is a story of the American Dream, as pursued by Barrett. Both French wine snobs like Spurrier and Gustavo, a young Montelena employee and vintner on the sly, consider wine making a product of destiny, wholly dependent on the blood in your veins and the soil you happened to be raised on. For Barrett, it is a matter of vision, commitment, and a little capital—the American way.

Shock is a bright and appealing film—literally. Michael J. Ozier cinematography makes the wine country sparkle. It moves along briskly and efficiently, even with Bo’s distracting subplots. Although you probably already have a pretty good idea where Shock is going (spoiler: the U.S. won), it is amiable ride getting there.

Jazz Score: A Man Called Adam

As cool as Saul Bass’s titles are for Anatomy of a Murder, this film has them beat, thanks to an opening sequence from the Hubley Studios, renown for their jazz animation. While Benny Carter’s soundtrack for A Man Called Adam might not best Ellington’s classic score, it is at least competitive. Screening Wednesday as part of the Jazz Score series at the MoMA, Adam is an overlooked classic of jazz cinema.

Sammy Davis, Jr. plays Adam Johnson, a superstar jazz trumpeter, who despite the occasional crooning, is clearly inspired by Miles Davis. Arrogant and uncompromising, Johnson bows to no man, but is not overtly political. He is more interested in assuaging his guilt over the accident that killed his wife and child with drink, drugs, and cheap sex. Fronting a band fast losing its patience with his self-destructive behavior, he has few meaningful relationships, besides a long suffering friend played by Ossie Davis and an earnest young white student played by Frank Sinatra, Jr. Yes, Junior, and he is darn good in the role too.

Adam is a film with a plethora of interesting relationships, including the Rat-Packers, Davis, Sinatra Jr., and Peter Lawford as Johnson’s stone cold evil booking agent Manny. There is no ring-a-ding-ding in the scenes between Davis and Lawford, just the characters’ pure contempt. Cicely Tyson plays (the fictional Miles Davis) Johnson’s love interest who tries to straighten his life out, with mixed results. Fifteen years later she would marry the real Miles Davis, and is generally credited with stabilizing his then chaotic life.

Davis, Sinatra, and Lawford are all great in the film, but the best performance comes from Louis Armstrong playing Willie “Sweet Daddy” Ferguson, essentially a fictionalized version of himself. He has two dynamite musical features with Tyree Gleen and his All-Stars of the time, but he is truly touching in his dramatic scenes, playing a man who might be respected, even beloved, but who realizes time has passed him by. At a Downbeat party, after “All That Jazz,” a killing swinger from Mel Tormé (yes, the Velvet Fog), Johnson finds the shy Ferguson sitting off in a corner. The kids at the party are nice enough he tells Johnson, but it “seems like the people don’t know what to say to me.” “Maybe it’s just that they don’t know what to say to a genius,” he responds, in a scene of cinematic perfection.

There is indeed fantastic music in Adam, composed and conducted by Benny Carter. In addition to Armstrong and Tormé, the Johnson combo performs some great music as well, with Nat Adderley getting screen credit for dubbing Johnson’s cornet. Kai Winding also appears as himself, as a member of Johnson’s band, with Junior Mance fulfilling the piano duties behind the scenes.

There are scenes in Adam addressing issues of race and music that cut like a knife. Yet, the swinging music makes it all go down sweet as candy. At times swinging, at times sad, Adam is neglected cinematic jewel, containing the best film work from everyone involved. It screens tomorrow and Saturday at MoMA.

Leipzig Live

Life in Leipzig
By Ketil Bjørnstad and Terje Rypdal
ECM Records 2052

With thirty published books and novels to his credit, Ketil Bjørnstad is certainly a literate jazz artist. While his only volume currently available in English is a biography of Edvard Munch, the influence of his fellow Norwegian artist is not readily apparent on Life in Leipzig, his new live duet release with frequent collaborator Terje Rypdal. However, the pianist and guitarist do create music of a vivid, darkly-hued nature, not totally foreign the spirit of some of the painter’s work.

Bjørnstad immediately serves notice of the dramatic program to come through the deep resonance of the Bösendorfer’s added low-end, as “The Sea V” rumbles to life with the sound of ominous foreboding. Bjørnstad slowly releases the tension and lightens the tone while Rypdal simply adds starkly atmospheric distortion effects, until entering in well past the track’s halfway mark, swooping and soaring over Bjørnstad’s piano, until they seamlessly segue into the next tune, “The Pleasure is Mine.”

As a set, Leipzig has a seductive ebb and flow that matches Bjørnstad’s frequent water music motifs. While their concert repertoire drew largely from Bjørnstad’s The Sea, his thematically related Water Stories, and several of Rypdal’s releases, it sounds almost like an extended suite, so subtle are the transitions from piece to piece. Bjørnstad alternates his rhapsodic runs on the keys with Rypdal’s squealing and shredding guitar through “The Sea V,” “Pleasure,” and “The Sea II,” finally giving the audience space to applaud with the conclusion of “Flotations and Surroundings.”

While “Easy Now” is more restrained and delicate, it could have been a coda to the preceding suite-but-not-a-suite. Grieg’s “Notturno” is a palate cleaning feature for Bjørnstad, as is the lovely miniature “Alai’s Room,” which leads directly into majestic “By the Fjord,” an ode to Norway if ever there was one.

As one of the greatest hits of Scandinavian jazz, the first audible notes of Rypdal’s “The Return of Per Ulv” brings appreciative applause from the audience. It is actually a tribute to the Warner Brothers’ character Wile E. Coyote, known as Peter Wolf in Norway, as the “Wile E.” presumably would not translate. It is a catchy melody here performed with gusto by both Bjørnstad and the composer, closing out quite a concert.

Although Leipzig is a live recording in the East German city’s Opera House, it often sounds like a studio production. While Bjørnstad might in his words: “not always be the softest pianist,” it is still a real trick balancing piano and electric guitar, so neither sounds overwhelmed or muffled, but no such worries here.

The sound is indeed fantastic and the music is compelling. Having performed together as a duo and in The Sea Quartet, Bjørnstad and Rypdal show a remarkable level of musical empathy in a powerhouse concert, the sonic currents of which listeners can willingly lose themselves in, until the rousing finale breaks the spell.

Opening in NY: Sixty Six

There was a time when British footballers were not the stuff of tabloid headlines and primetime soap operas. Before David Beckham there was the 1966 British national team, who would go deep into the World Cup tournament, ruining future director Paul Weiland’s Bar Mitzvah in the process. At least it provided the seed of the idea for his new film Sixty Six, opening today in New York.

Everything that can go wrong for Bernie Rubens, Weiland’s fictional alter-ego, does go wrong. Bullied by his own brother, in treatment for asthma, and embarrassed by a father who is not eccentric, but frankly just plain off, young Bernie has invested much in his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. In his fantasies, it will be the empowering moment when everything changes and his family finally gives him the respect and attention he deserves. Unfortunately, his parents have scheduled it on the same date as the World Cup final.

Since the unheralded England team was far from favored, his parents do not take his concerns seriously. They have more pressing concerns now that a supermarket threatens to put the family green grocery out of business. Fearing his destiny depends on a loss for England, the nebbish Bernie takes a crash course in international soccer. Simultaneously, he creates unrealistic plans for his Bar Mitzvah, hopelessly raising his expectations for the event.

Sixty Six is the kind of film that the dirty word of “quirky” is sure to be applied. Indeed, the family eccentricity gets laid on pretty thick. However, there is a refreshingly positive role for religion in the film, as personified by Rabbi Linov, Bernie’s blind Bar Mitzvah teacher, who just might have some real wisdom to offer, if his student will only listen.

Weiland’s film boasts an appealing cast of character actors (for lack of a better term) with some of its best performances coming in supporting roles. Richard Katz plays the kindly Rabbi Linov without turning him into a caricature of saccharine nobility. Stephen Rea is always interesting to watch on-screen, in this case as asthma specialist Dr. Barrie, the only other adult who seems to find time for Bernie. It is also nice to see Helena Bonham Carter in a film not directed by Tim Burton, here playing Bernie’s long suffering mother. How she ended up with such a weirdo husband is explained, but never really believable.

Frankly, it would be easier to maintain a rooting interest in the Rubens family if Bernie (Gregg Sulkin) was not so milk-toast and his father (Eddie Marsan) was not such an anti-social oddball. In fact, Bernie’s Bar Mitvah can not come soon enough, because the overly earnest protagonist could use some growing-up at times. However, the film gives him an epiphany about personal responsibility that lends some meaning to the “quirky” tale, helping to redeem his sad sack character.

As unapologetically sentimental as Sixty Six gets, it does not forget the underlying religious significance of the event in question. Ultimately, that is what keeps the film from descending into sitcom territory. It opens today in New York and next Wednesday in L.A.