Avant-garde
cineastes know it as Shirley Clarke’s The
Connection, but to fans of classic Blue Note hard bop, it belongs to
Freddie Redd. While Clarke’s adaptation
of Jack Gelber’s boundary-breaking stage play holds a place of honor in the world
of independent/experimental cinema, Redd’s music claims the ears and affections
of many jazz listeners, particularly fans of the late great alto-saxophonist
Jackie McLean. For the uninitiated,
Milestone kicks off Project Shirley,
a four film Clarke restoration and re-release program, with her cinematic take
on The Connection (trailer here) tomorrow at the
IFC Center.
Filmmaker
Jim Dunn and his cameraman have come to document the lurid lives of
junkies. Through their lens, we will
watch a group of addicts loll about a divey crash-pad, waiting for their
dealer, known as Cowboy, to finally show up.
Some are rather irritable while others are quite garrulous, but they are
all junkies, engaging in junkie behavior.
This includes Freddie Redd’s Quartet, playing themselves, rehearsing a
bit to pass the time.
Sadly,
McLean certainly had his share of drug troubles. Of course, he learned from the master, his
mentor Charlie Parker. His seventeen
month stint performing in the stage production of The Connection was a godsend for the musician. A narcotics bust had cost him his cabaret
card, making him unemployable in New York nightclubs. However, legit theaters, even grungy
avant-garde venues like The Living Theater, were except from the controversial
regulation. The Connection became something still quite rare in the jazz world—a
regular gig—at a time when McLean most needed it.
It
is great music too—perhaps too good.
Redd rerecorded his themes with a different line-up for a British label,
which hardly endeared him to Blue Note co-founder and producer Alfred
Lion. Redd only recorded three records
for Blue Note during what should have been the peak of his productive years,
including the Redd’s Blues session that
was finally released decades after it was laid down. Yet, they perfectly represent the smoldering intensity
of the hard bop style incubated on the label.
As
a film, Clarke’s Connection is
undeniably important, winning a pyrrhic victory against the New York Board of
Regents (which then functioned as a censoring schoolmarm for New York
cinemas). However, its cast, mostly
carried over from the Living Theater production, is clearly more accustomed to
acting for the stage (such as it was) than the screen. However, it boasts an iconically cool
performance from Carl Lee, who would appear in several blaxoploitation classics
before succumbing to his own demons, as the smoothly dangerous Cowboy. Yet, the most intriguing turn comes from
Roscoe Lee Browne as J.J. Burden, the street smart cameraman, who acts as a hip
corrective to Dunn’s naïve pretentions.
