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FIRE MUSIC: THE STORY OF FREE JAZZ

Sun Ra is one of the free jazz pioneers featured in Fire Music (photo by Baron Wolman / courtesy of Submarine Deluxe)

FIRE MUSIC: THE STORY OF FREE JAZZ (Tom Surgal, 2018)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens Friday, September 10
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
www.firemusic.org

College is supposed to be a life-changing, career-defining experience. For me, there were two specific seminal moments, both of which took place in the classroom: discovering avant-garde film in a course taught by New York Film Festival cofounder Amos Vogel, author of Film as a Subversive Art, and being introduced to the free jazz movement, the radical response to bebop, in the History of American Music. Without those two flashpoints, it’s unlikely I would be writing a review of Tom Surgal’s Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz all these years later.

Opening on September 10 at Film Forum, Fire Music takes a deep dive into free jazz, told with spectacular archival footage and old and new interviews with more than three dozen musicians who were part of the sonic upheaval, with famed jazz writer Gary Giddins adding further insight. Writer-director Surgal, who is also a drummer and percussionist, traces the development of free jazz chronologically, focusing on such groundbreaking figures as saxophonists Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Sam Rivers, pianist Cecil Taylor, and keyboardist and synth maestro Sun Ra. “It was terrifying for people,” Giddins says about the original reaction to free jazz, from audiences and musicians. “A lot of people were just, What the hell is this? This isn’t even music.”

There are snippets of live performances by Charlie Parker, Sun Ra Arkestra, Dolphy, Coltrane, Ayler, Max Roach, Don Cherry, Marion Brown, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, M’Boom, the Sam Rivers Trio, Globe Unity Orchestra, and others that set the right mood; this is not swing or bop but something wholly different — and dissonant — that requires an open mind and open ears, but it’s pure magic. “It was like a religion,” pianist Carla Bley remembers. Saxophonist John Tchicai explains, “Each individual could play in his own tempo or create melodies that were independent, in a way, from what the other players were playing. We had to break some boundary to be able to create something new.”

Surgal talks to the musicians about improvising without following standard chord progressions, the four-day October Revolution at the Cellar Café, trumpeter Bill Dixon starting the Jazz Composers’ Guild, pianist Muhal Richard Abrams cofounding the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago, the formation of the Black Artists Group in St. Louis, the loft scene in New York City, the development of free jazz in New York, Los Angeles, the Midwest, and Europe, and the importance of the 1960 record Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, featuring Coleman, Cherry, Scott LaFaro, and Billy Higgins on the left channel and Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell on the right. Sadly, sixteen of the artists in the film have passed away since Surgal started the project; many others seen in clips died at an early age.

For these players, it was more than just fame and fortune; they were constantly called upon to defend free jazz itself. Taylor, who came out of the New England Conservatory, explains, “It seems to me what music is is everything that you do.” Pianist Misha Engelberg admits, “I am a complete fraud.” Meanwhile, Coleman trumpeter Bobby Bradford says of Ayler, “Here’s a saxophone player, man, that we all are thinking, we just broke the sound barrier — wow — and here’s a guy that’s gonna take us to another planet. Is that what we want to do?” As far as outer space is concerned, Sun Ra claims to be from Saturn.

John Coltrane is highlighted as the spiritual father of the free jazz movement (photo by Lee Tanner / courtesy of Submarine Deluxe)

Among the others who chime in are saxophonists Gato Barbieri, John Gilmore, Marshall Allen, Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Noah Howard, Prince Lasha, and Archie Shepp, trombonists Roswell Rudd and George Lewis, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, pianists Burton Greene and Dave Burrell, drummers Rashied Ali, Barry Altschul, Thurman Barker, Warren Smith, Han Bennink, and Günter “Baby” Sommer, and vibesmen Karl Berger and Gunter Hampel, each musician unique and cooler than cool as great clips and stories move and groove to their own offbeat, subversive cacophony, brought together in a furious improvisation by editor and cowriter John Northrop, with original music by Lin Culbertson. Producers on the film include such contemporary musicians as Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, and Jeff Tweedy.

Surgal made Fire Music because he felt that the free jazz movement is largely forgotten today; his documentary goes a long way in showing how shortsighted that is. You don’t have to be in college to love this incredible music, and the film itself, which is a crash course in an unforgettable sound like no other.

(Film Forum will host an in-person Q&A with Surgal, Moore, and Smith at the 7:00 show on September 10 and with Surgal, Barker, and jazz writer Clifford Allen at the 7:00 screening on September 11.)

CARMINE STREET GUITARS

Carmine Street Guitars

Rick Kelly and Cindy Hulej are a mutual admiration society in Carmine Street Guitars

CARMINE STREET GUITARS (Ron Mann, 2018)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens Wednesday, April 24
212-727-8110
filmforum.org
www.sphinxproductions.com

In the second half of Ron Mann’s utterly delightful and unique documentary Carmine Street Guitars, a well-dressed, well-groomed young man enters the title store in Greenwich Village and identifies himself as Adam Shalom, a Realtor who is selling the building next door. Shalom tries to talk about square footage, but Carmine Street Guitars founder and owner Rick Kelly barely looks up as he continues cleaning a fret. It’s a critical, uncomfortable moment in an otherwise intimate and inviting film; throughout the rest of the eighty-minute documentary, the soft-spoken Kelly talks guitars and craftsmanship with a stream of very cool musicians and his punk-looking young apprentice, Cindy Hulej. But Shalom’s arrival hearkens to one of the main reasons why Mann made the movie: to capture one of the last remaining old-time shops in a changing neighborhood, a former bohemian paradise that has been taken over by hipsters and corporate culture, by upscale stores and restaurants and luxury apartments. You’ll actually cheer that Kelly gives Shalom such short shrift, but you’ll also realize that Shalom and others might be knocking again at that door all too soon.

Carmine Street Guitars

Rick Kelly welcomes “instigator” Jim Jarmusch to his Greenwich Village shop in Carmine Street Guitars

The rest of the film is an absolute treat. Mann follows five days in the life of Carmine Street Guitars; each day begins with a static shot of the store from across the street, emphasizing it as part of a community as people walk by or Kelly, who was born in Bay Shore, arrives with a piece of wood he’s scavenged. The camera then moves indoors to show Kelly and Hulej making guitars by hand, using old, outdated tools and wood primarily from local buildings that date back to the nineteenth century. Kelly doesn’t do computers and doesn’t own a cell phone; he leaves all that to Hulej, who posts pictures of new six-strings on Instagram. Meanwhile, Kelly’s ninetysomething mother, Dorothy, works in the back of the crazily cluttered store, taking care of the books with an ancient adding machine. Over the course of the week, they are visited by such musicians as Dallas and Travis Good of the Sadies (who composed the film’s soundtrack), “Captain” Kirk Douglas of the Roots, Eleanor Friedberger, Dave Hill of Valley Lodge, Jamie Hince of the Kills, Nels Cline of Wilco, Christine Bougie of Bahamas, Marc Ribot, and Charlie Sexton. Bill Frisell plays an impromptu surf-guitar instrumental version of the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl.” Stewart Hurwood, Lou Reed’s longtime guitar tech, talks about using Reed’s guitars for the ongoing “DRONES” live installation. “It’s like playing a piece of New York,” Lenny Kaye says about the guitars made from local wood while also referring to the shop as part of the “real village.”

Mann, the Canadian director of such previous nonfiction films as Grass, Know Your Mushrooms, and Comic Book Confidential, was inspired to make the movie at the suggestion of his friend Jarmusch, who in addition to directing such works as Stranger Than Paradise (which featured Balint), Down by Law, and 2016 NYFF selection Paterson is in the New York band Sqürl. Plus, it was Jarmusch who first got Kelly interested in crafting his guitars with wood from buildings, “the bones of old New York,” resulting in Telecaster-based six-strings infused with the history of Chumley’s, McSorley’s, the Chelsea Hotel, and other city landmarks. Carmine Street Guitars, which is far more than just mere guitar porn, opens April 24 at Film Forum, with Mann, Kelly, and Hulej participating in Q&As following the 7:45 show on Wednesday night, joined by Jarmusch, and after the 6:00 screening on Friday and 4:10 show on Saturday.

NYFF56 SPOTLIGHT ON DOCUMENTARY: CARMINE STREET GUITARS

Carmine Street Guitars

Rick Kelly and Cindy Hulej are a mutual admiration society in Carmine Street Guitars

NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL: CARMINE STREET GUITARS (Ron Mann, 2018)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Saturday, October 6, Walter Reade Theater, 4:15
Monday, October 8, Francesca Beale Theater, 2:30
Festival runs through October 14
212-875-5610
www.filmlinc.org

In the second half of Ron Mann’s utterly delightful and unique documentary Carmine Street Guitars, a well-dressed, well-groomed young man enters the title store in Greenwich Village and identifies himself as Adam Shalom, a Realtor who is selling the building next door. Shalom tries to talk about square footage, but Carmine Street Guitars founder and owner Rick Kelly barely looks up as he continues cleaning a fret. It’s a critical, uncomfortable moment in an otherwise intimate and inviting film; throughout the rest of the eighty-minute documentary, the soft-spoken Kelly talks guitars and craftsmanship with a stream of very cool musicians and his punk-looking young apprentice, Cindy Hulej. But Shalom’s arrival harkens to one of the main reasons why Mann made the movie: to capture one of the last remaining old-time shops in a changing neighborhood, a former bohemian paradise that has been taken over by hipsters and corporate culture, by upscale stores and restaurants and luxury apartments. You’ll actually cheer that Kelly gives Shalom such short shrift, but you’ll also realize that Shalom and others might be knocking again at that door all too soon.

Carmine Street Guitars

Rick Kelly welcomes “instigator” Jim Jarmusch to his Greenwich Village shop in Carmine Street Guitars

The rest of the film is an absolute treat. Mann follows five days in the life of Carmine Street Guitars; each day begins with a static shot of the store from across the street, emphasizing it as part of a community as people walk by or Kelly, who was born in Bay Shore, arrives with a piece of wood he’s scavenged. The camera then moves indoors to show Kelly and Hulej making guitars by hand, using old, outdated tools and wood primarily from local buildings that date back to the nineteenth century. Kelly doesn’t do computers and doesn’t own a cell phone; he leaves all that to Hulej, who posts pictures of new six-strings on Instagram. Meanwhile, Kelly’s ninetysomething mother, Dorothy, works in the back of the crazily cluttered store, taking care of the books with an ancient adding machine. Over the course of the week, they are visited by such musicians as Dallas and Travis Good of the Sadies (who composed the film’s soundtrack), “Captain” Kirk Douglas of the Roots, Eleanor Friedberger, Dave Hill of Valley Lodge, Jamie Hince of the Kills, Nels Cline of Wilco, Christine Bougie of Bahamas, Marc Ribot, and Charlie Sexton. Bill Frisell plays an impromptu surf-guitar instrumental version of the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl.” Stewart Hurwood, Lou Reed’s longtime guitar tech, talks about using Reed’s guitars for the ongoing “DRONES” live installation. “It’s like playing a piece of New York,” Lenny Kaye says about the guitars made from local wood while also referring to the shop as part of the “real village.”

Mann, the Canadian director of such previous nonfiction films as Grass, Know Your Mushrooms, and Comic Book Confidential, was inspired to make the movie at the suggestion of his friend Jarmusch, who in addition to directing such works as Stranger Than Paradise (which featured Balint), Down by Law, and 2016 NYFF selection Paterson is in the New York band Sqürl. Plus, it was Jarmusch who first got Kelly interested in crafting his guitars with wood from buildings, “the bones of old New York,” resulting in Telecaster-based six-strings infused with the history of Chumley’s, McSorley’s, the Chelsea Hotel, and other city landmarks. Carmine Street Guitars, which is far more than just mere guitar porn, is screening in the Spotlight on Documentary section of the New York Film Festival on October 6 and 8, with Mann participating in Q&As after each show, joined by special guests, including Kelly and Hulej on October 6. The film will be preceded by the world premiere of eighty-seven-year-old Manfred Kirchheimer’s thirty-nine-minute Dream of a City, a collage of 16mm black-and-white images of construction sites and street scenes taken between 1958 and 1960, set to music by Shostakovich and Debussy. Kirchheimer (Stations of the Elevated) will also be at both Q&As as well as the October 6 free NYFF Docs Talk with Alexis Bloom, James Longley, Mark Bozek, and Tom Surgal, moderated by Lesli Klainberg.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL 2016: ALMOST SUNRISE

ALMOST SUNRISE

Anthony Anderson and Tom Voss go for a long walk to promote military veterans’ health issues in ALMOST SUNRISE

ALMOST SUNRISE (Michael Collins, 2016)
Saturday, June 11, 9:15, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway, 212-875-5050
Monday, June 13, 6:30, IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St., 212-924-7771
Festival runs June 10-19
ff.hrw.org/new-york
sunrisedocumentary.com

Michael Collins’s emotionally gripping documentary, Almost Sunrise, is built around an absolutely shocking statistic: According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, twenty-two U.S. veterans commit suicide every day. That’s one self-inflicted death every sixty-five minutes. In the film, two young veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom, facing depression and suicidal thoughts themselves, decide to walk from their homes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Los Angeles, California, in order to clear their own heads and raise awareness of this horrifying issue. Tom Voss and Anthony Anderson, a pair of big, bushy-haired men, became media darlings as they continued what became known as Veterans Trek, meeting with local press along the way and occasionally being joined by other veterans and supporters for parts of the 2,700-mile walk. But for much of the time, it’s just them against the elements, wandering across long stretches of deserted highways in the middle of nowhere, photographed beautifully by Clarissa de los Reyes. The two men intimately open up to Collins, who is with them every step of the pilgrimage; they share their thoughts about their families and speak dramatically about “moral injury,” a form of PTSD that the film describes as “a wound to the soul, caused by participation in events that violate one’s deeply held sense of right and wrong.” Similar distress is examined in Sonia Kenneback’s National Bird, in which military personnel working in the U.S. drone program try to deal with how they will never know the results of their classified operations, whether they hit the correct targets or whether they caused so-called collateral damage to innocent civilians.

In Almost Sunrise, Emmett Cullen, a close friend of Voss’s who served alongside him in Iraq, explains, “After you see enough people getting hurt, and see other people get killed, you start to write yourself off in a way. You’re kind of resigned to the fact that you might as well just consider yourself already dead, and if you make it home, you’re lucky. ’Cause that’s the only real mental shift you can make to make it through those kinds of scenarios without kind of freaking out,” adding, “Mentally, you’re processing the situation you’re in, and the dangers, but you’re not feeling it. So that carries over to civilian life when you get out.” Both Voss and Anderson share their struggles with that transition, reaching deep inside themselves. The section near the end in which Voss turns to holistic breathing techniques feels tacked on, almost like an infomercial for that specific healing process, regardless of its success. But the rest of Almost Sunrise, which features a score by Adam Crystal and music by Yuka Honda and Nels Cline, is a sobering look at what soldiers go through in war and some of the profound psychological issues they have to face when they come home. Almost Sunrise is screening twice at the 2016 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, on June 11 at 9:15 at IFC Center and June 13 at 6:30 at the Walter Reade Theater, both followed by a Q&A with Collins, producer Marty Syjuco, Voss, and Anderson, with his wife, Holly.

NEW YORK GUITAR FESTIVAL

Ring the Golden Bells: Celebrating 101 Years of Sister Rosetta Tharpe kicks off New York Guitar Festival on May 8

“Ring the Golden Bells: Celebrating 101 Years of Sister Rosetta Tharpe” kicks off New York Guitar Festival on May 8

Who: Luther Dickinson, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Dom Flemons, Ruthie Foster, Como Mamas, John Medeski, AJ Ghent, Nels Cline and Julian Lage, Dave Douglas with Camila Meza, Min Xiao-Fen, Alberta Khoury, Vernon Reid & Laraaji, Kid Millions, many more
What: New York Guitar Festival, including the Alternative Guitar Summit
Where: Brookfield Winter Garden, National Sawdust, DROM, the Greene Space, the Met Cloisters, the New School
When: May 8 – 15, free – $25
Why: An annual celebration since 1999 of the six-string and many of its manifestations and possibilities, the New York Guitar Festival begins May 8 at 8:30 at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden with “Ring the Golden Bells,” a tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with Luther Dickinson, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Valerie June, Dom Flemons, Ruthie Foster, Rachael Davis, Trixie Whitley, Como Mamas, John Medeski, Daru Jones, Dominic John Davis, and AJ Ghent. On May 9 at 7:00, “Beauty and Noise” at National Sawdust brings together David Torn, Dither Guitar Duo, Elliot Sharp, Anthony Pirog, Ben Monder, Mike Baggetta, Dither Guitar Duo, and Patrick Higgins. On May 11 at 7:30 at DROM, “While We’re Still Here: Honoring Joni Mitchell + Carla Bley” features Nels Cline and Julian Lage, Dave Douglas with Camila Meza, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Sheryl Bailey, Leni Stern, Joel Harrison, Monder, and Baggetta. Rez Abbasi, Derek Gripper, Kaki King, and Glenn Jones will perform on May 12 at 7:00 at the Greene Space. The Met Cloisters will host an immersive guitar marathon on May 14 with more than a dozen performers at different locations, including Min Xiao-Fen in Early Gothic Hall, Alberta Khoury in Langon Chapel, Colin Davin in Fuentidueña Chapel, Dylan Carlson in Pontaut Chapter House, and Vernon Reid & Laraaji in Trie Cloister Café. And on May 15, the NYGF Academy at the New School comprises seven panel discussions and conversations, from “Contemporary Improvisation and the Electric Guitar” and “A Conversation with Kid Millions, Don Bikoff + Jeff Conklin” to “Nigel North: The French Lute of the 17th-Century” and “Saul Koll in Conversation with Ed Keller.”

WINTER JAZZFEST 2016

James “Blood” Ulmer will be part of the Winter Jazzfest marathon this week

James “Blood” Ulmer will be part of the Winter Jazzfest marathon this week

Multiple venues in downtown Manhattan
January 13-17, single-day marathon pass $45, two-day pass $75, full festival pass $145
www.winterjazzfest.com

While such January performance festivals as COIL, Under the Radar, Prototype, and American Realness go the multidisciplinary route, mixing things up with dance, experimental theater, installation art, opera, music, and various hybrids, Winter Jazzfest sticks to exactly what its name says it is: a winter festival of jazz music. The 2016 Winter Jazzfest takes place January 13-17, featuring more than 120 musicians, DJs, and bands playing at a dozen venues in downtown Manhattan, including the twelfth annual jazz marathon spread over two days. Below is a guide to help navigate some of the hottest shows.

Wednesday, January 13
The Ex, Bill Laswell, Colin Stetson, Happy Apple, (le) poisson rouge, $20-$25, 8:00

Thursday, January 14
Jazz Legends for Disability Pride, with Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Christian McBride, Jimmy Cobb, Harold Mabern, George Coleman, Buster Williams, Louis Hayes, Bill Charlap, Monty Alexander, and others, the Quaker’s Friends Meeting House, $100, 6:30

Friday, January 15: Winter Jazzfest Marathon
Joey Arias: Basic Black, (le) poisson rouge, 6:20
Roy Hargrove, the New School Auditorium, 7:40
James “Blood” Ulmer, the New School Auditorium, 9:00
Dr. Lonnie Smith’s Evolution, Judson Memorial Church, 9:20
The Ex, the Greene Space, 11:00
Vijay Iyer Trio, the New School Tishman Auditorium, 11:20
Jeff Lederer’s Brooklyn Blowhard, Subculture, 12:20 am
Theo Croker, the Bitter End, 1:40 am

Saturday, January 16: Winter Jazzfest Marathon
Don Byron Quartet, the New School Auditorium, 6:20
Theo Bleckmann Elegy, the New School Tishman Auditorium, 7:20
Cyrus Chestnut’s African Reflections, the Greene Space, 8:20
Will Calhoun Celebrating Elvin Jones, New School Jazz Building Fifth Floor Theater, 9:40
Samy Daussat “Gypsy Tribute to Serge Gainsbourg,” the Django at the Roxy Hotel, 11:00
Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen, Judson Memorial Church, 12 midnight

Sunday, January 17
Channeling Coltrane: Rova’s Electric Ascension, with Nels Cline, Charles Burnham, Gerald Cleaver, Trevor Dunn, Jason Kao Hwang, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, and Nate Wooley and an opening set by Julian Lag, (le) poisson rouge, $25-$30, 6:00

THE MUSIC OF DAVID BYRNE AND TALKING HEADS AT CARNEGIE HALL

music of david byrne

THE MUSIC OF DAVID BYRNE & TALKING HEADS
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, 881 Seventh Ave. at West 57th St.
Monday, March 23, $48-$160, 8:00
www.musicof.org

LIVE REHEARSAL SHOW
City Winery, 155 Varick St.
Sunday, March 22, $35-$55, 8:00
www.citywinery.com

For his eleventh “Music of” presentation benefiting music and education organizations for children, City Winery owner Michael Dorf will celebrate the career of David Byrne, both as a solo artist and the leader of Talking Heads. Past years have paid homage to Prince, Paul Simon, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, R.E.M., Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and others, with a wide-ranging group of musicians paying tribute by covering many of the songs that helped define the artist. Those gathering on March 23 at Carnegie Hall to sing the songs of Byrne and the Heads are Amanda Palmer and Jherek Bischoff, Sharon Jones, O.A.R., Steve Earle, Todd Snider, Thievery Corporation, Glen Hansard, Esperanza Spalding, CeeLo Green, Pete Molinari, Alexis Krauss, Billy F. Gibbons, Santigold, Beth Orton, the Roots, Bebel Gilberto, Forro in the Dark, and Cibo Matto with Nels Cline; Antibalas will serve as the house band. The night before the event, many of the artists will be at City Winery for a live rehearsal show that is open to the public. All proceeds will benefit Midori & Friends, the Center for Arts Education, Little Kids Rock, Grammy in the Schools, Fixing Instruments for Kids in Schools, and the Church Street School for Music & Art.