Shirley Clarke’s Ornette

Ornette Coleman won the Pulitzer Prize for musical composition and performed live on Saturday Night Live.  Although neither event is covered in Shirley Clarke’s classically idiosyncratic documentary-profile, viewers still get a memorable sense of the artist and his music Ornette: Made in America (trailer here), which opens in New York this Friday at the IFC Center, as part of Milestone Films’ Project Shirley restoration and rerelease program.

Explaining Coleman’s place in the jazz world would take some doing, especially in 1985, before his late career Grammy and Pulitzer accolades finally came cascading in.  Coleman was one of the pioneers of the Free Jazz movement, whose legendary engagement at New York’s Five Spot club sharply divided the jazz world.  However, you will not find his creation story here.  Instead, Clarke’s approach to Coleman the man and the musician is deeply rooted in the then current moment, yet also rather timeless.

In the mid 80’s, the establishment (broadly defined) was just starting to understand Coleman was a force to be reckoned with.  As the film opens, the mayor of Fort Worth presents Coleman with a copy of the key to the city (the original he explains had been sent up into space or something), in the hours before the alto saxophonist-multi-instrumentalist will debut Skies of America, a major new composition integrating a symphony orchestra with his avant-garde electric combo Prime Time.  Hizzoner’s speech might strike New York hipsters as a bit corny, but his drummer-manager-son Denardo is quite pleased his father is finally being recognized. 

In fact, there is something all-encompassing and Whitmanesque about Coleman’s deeply blues-influenced music that is perfectly represented by a title like Skies of America, as well as the mayor’s patriotically Texan remarks.  Shrewdly, Clarke uses this fairly accessible work as the musical centerpiece for the film, much like Sonny Rollins’ concert premiere of Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra dominates Robert Mugge’s Saxophone Colossus.

There was probably no documentarian better suited to Coleman’s personality and aesthetic than Shirley Clarke.  Her style of filmmaking perfectly reflects his music—fragmentary and baffling to the willfully uninitiated, but there strong compositional conception underlying it all.  Her visual sensibility might be far from infallible (a kid with an iPad could put her space age special effects to shame these days), but she demonstrates a rock solid command of Coleman’s acutely syncopated rhythms and had a keen insight into his creative milieu.

Indeed, except for perhaps Clint Eastwood, no filmmaker can equal Clarke’s position as a filmmaker whose work promotes and is informed by America’s great original art form.  The Connection, which launched Project Shirley, is a milestone (if you will) of independent filmmaking, in large measure due to Freddie Redd’s absolutely classic tunes.  Likewise, her viscerally naturalistic social issue drama, The Cool World, derives considerable power from Mal Waldron’s soundtrack (which in turn was rerecorded by Dizzy Gillespie’s combo for the official OST LP version).  There was even the non-narrative short, Bridges-Go-Round, featuring the music of Teo Macero.  Ornette is sort of a summing up of her jazz evangelism, shining a spotlight on one of the most controversial yet at the time underappreciated artists to ever set foot on the bandstand.

Time and again, Clarke alternately emphasizes Coleman’s blues roots and hardscrabble early life (even filming young actors portraying the alto saxophonist in dramatized vignettes of his formative years) and his compulsively forward looking (almost futuristic) orientation.  The fact that most of Coleman’s philosophizing makes little to no sense is hardly important.  No, he never really explains his theory of harmolodics in Ornette and she wisely never pushes him. 

The Coleman seen in Ornette matches the accounts I have personally heard from musician-friends who have had conversations with him and say it was the coolest thing ever, even though they have no idea what he said.  Any film conveying that experience is worth seeing, but Ornette has considerably more to offer.  A highly entertaining time-capsule of a jazz documentary, Ornette: Made in America is recommended for anyone who wants their ears stretched a bit when it opens this Friday (8/31) at the IFC Center.

Shirley Clarke and Freddie Redd’s The Connection

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.

For viewers who have seen John Travolta pop a syringe full of adrenaline through Uma Thurman’s breastplate, the heroin scenes in The Connection might appear tame by comparison.  Yet, it never glamorizes drug use.  Believe it or not, it is much closer to Nancy Reagan than Cheech & Chong in that respect.  Regardless, there is an earthiness and immediacy to the film that still holds up.  Of course, there is also the music, which alone justifies a strong recommendation.  This review was written to the sounds of Redd’s score and every minute of it sounded awesome, again, for the something-hundredth time.  It is a film everyone considering themselves fully accredited film snobs really has to be familiar with.  Conveniently, it opens tomorrow (5/4) at New York’s IFC Center, in all its freshly restored gritty glory.