Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is an exciting and interesting movie on historical Jazz. It also offers a proposal on how to deal with a problem that has never been entirely solved in jazz: how to re-create past music. In classical musicyou simply play the score, which contains more or less everything. But theessence of jazz is not in the score, but in all those non-objectifiableelements that are not in the score, namely, those collectively called"swing" (that's why the score is not the document in jazz, butonly the recorded piece, which glorifies one particular instant).
Hence,how do you solve the problem? Do you play ancient jazz with exactly thesame sound and accents (horrible) or do you use modern tricks (maybekitsch)? Do you repeat note-by-note the original solos or do you play newimprovised ones on top of the old arrangements? There have been variousattempts: for instance, Lennie Niehaus' system in Clint Eastwood"Bird" to electronically remove ancient rhythm sections andsuperimpose Parker's solos on new rhythm sections (interesting butterrible). Tavernier with Dexter Gordon in "Round Midnight"skipped the problem and recorded new music.
In "Jazz '34",instead, we have a frech approach: that of letting modern jazzmen interpretthose pieces. It is clear they pay their dues to the pioneers - the swingand freshness is there to testify this - but at the same time they are notshy about showing off their modern techniques and mastery of the overtones- especially tenor saxophonists, like Joshua Redman and James Carter, thelatter being fond of mingling with the elders. Hence it is as if they hadcreated musically a virtual, parallel Kansas City of 1934, which isdistinct from the music of the time but claims the same validity.
Hence,also the re-created battle between Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young (JoshuaRedman and James Carter, if not mistaken) on "Yeah, Man" has tobe taken with a grain of salt: it's a fantasy, the ancient ones did notplay that way, but the relationship between the two, to some degree,holds.
The music is fascinating and stands on its own andits quality ishigh enough to warrant the purchase of the movie. In addition we have HarryBelafonte's comments, interesting and pleasurable, and some shots ofrecreated Kansas City in 1934, which are simply fascinating, and from whatI know look very authentic (no, I was not there, but Altman was).
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Product Description:
Featuring Jesse Davis, David Fathead Newman, Ron Carter, Christian McBride, Tyrone Clark, Don Byron, Russel Malone, Mark Whitfield, Victor Lewis, Geri Allen, Cyrus Chesnut, James Carter, Craig Handy, David Murray, Joshua Redman, Curtis Fowlkes, Clark Gayt
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