Jazz greats: The story of society's outcasts
1986Mark Schneider 1986-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 16 →
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Get a new one-year subscription or renew your old Subscribe now to Socialist Action! 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1986 15 Round Midnight, a film directed by Bertrand Tavernier.
Jazz is the only internationally practiced art form to originate in the United States. It is one of Afro-America's great gifts to the world.
After almost a century of development (depending upon how far back you wish to trace the roots) jazz remains, if not a cultural outlaw, at best an outcast. It takes place on the fringe of everything es -tablished.
Of course, Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet has just been installed at the Smithsonian, MOVIE REVIEW there is a Duke Ellington Street in Manhattan, and there is a resurgence of the music today in its fusion and funk form...But that's not the real story.
The real, honest story is magnificently told (fittingly by a French director since Hollywood doesn't even deal with real stories about white people) in "Round Midnight." The title derives from the classic ballad by Thelenious Monk.
Many jazz musicians fled the United States for Europe in the late '40s and '50s to avoid the racism of Jim Crow and the McCarthy era, or simply to earn a living. They included the pianist Bud Powell and the saxophonist Lester Young, upon whose lives the character, based.
Young and Powell, along with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Monk, Gillespie, and others were seminal influences in the creation of be-bop, the syncopated, harmonically complex form of jazz that developed out of the swing style of the Basie and Ellington bands.
Many of these musicians were innovators who created a lasting and vibrant art form which was almost totally ignored by white society. These musicians struggled through poverty, obscurity, exile-and for many, drug or alchohol addiction. They had something beautiful and new to say; and no one was listening.
Dale Turner gets a gig in Paris but continues to stumble sadly downhill under the weight of alcoholism. His fortunes reverse when Francis, a young Frenchman who idolizes him, initiates a friendship. At the outset, Dale is a broken man, tired of everything in life except music. Under the influence of Francis, he reawakens, kicks the bottle, and learns to take control of his own life again.
The film is initially shot in darkened clubs, seedy hotels, and nocturnal streets. Gradually, the element of sunlight gains force in the cinematography, leading to a glorious scene of harmony at the beach one Name Addre!
City Zip where Dale, Francis, and his young daughter form an odd "family" group.
As it must, the story returns to the United States, where all the forces of oppression and despair are relentlessly at work. Martin Scorcesse is wonderful as a sleazy club owner who helps bring the story "on home" to its inevitable conclusion.
In its entirety, the film itself has the feeling and structure of a slow blues: resolved, unresolved, resolved but trans -formed situations. A concluding segment, like a musical coda, ends the story on an uplifting note.
The delight of this film is in the music. You can enjoy the film even if you don't love jazz, but if you do, don't miss the movie. Contemporary musicians are cast in the roles of the musical characters, and they get to play a lot.
Dexter Gordon, the brilliant saxophonist who spent most of his career in Europe, is magnificent as Dale Turner. He conveys tremendous feeling with a look, a gesture, a laugh, a line, as he builds a portrait of a complex, troubled artist. Pianist Herbie Hancock and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson also have small roles, and Francois Cluzet is excellent as the young Frenchman.
"Round Midnight" is not essentially a inclc or her a free six-month subscription.
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State Tel. Send Name Addre City Zip political movie. It is about friendship and love, and how artists sacrifice to do what they must. It says a little extra, however, just by taking jazz as its subject, because the movie is about the Black musicians who created it. This portrait of their confined existence, their exile, speaks volumes about the larger society that pushed them into a corner.
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