Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz, and: Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe (review)

In four of his films, German actor, director, writer and producer Julian Benedikt has used stylized images and editing to explore various narratives in jazz. Two of his previous works, on drummer Chico Hamil ton and photographer William Claxton, were about creative individuals and their work. The recent DVD release of his documentaries Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz and Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe explores the impact of Europeans on jazz, and vice versa.

On the surface, Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz is about Blue Note records, a label that has played an important role in documenting American blues, swing, hard-bop and avant-garde jazz. But the deeper question is how the label's owners, two German Jewish immigrants named Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, could as outsiders immerse themselves into the black music culture in New York and create the quintessential American jazz record company. Neither Lion nor Wolff were musicians, although Wolff was an accomplished photographer who documented all the Blue Note sessions up until 1966. Yet working in an industry known for exploitation, they managed to gain musicians' respect, trust and affection by encouraging them to write their own music and, above all else, "to schwing."

The Blue Note film is not a conventional documentary. First, Benedikt composes shots that frame musicians in interesting ways. The lighting and use of black and white adds drama, dimension and depth to the visual images, and the editing and moving graphics sets up a syncopated rhythm, especially with the montage of images (LP covers) and sounds (stage announcements from the club Birdland). There are some awkward moments, like the hokey historic recreations at the start, Max Roach's profanity blooper, and mismatched soundtrack music and image. Much better, however, are the scenes of musicians discussing their recordings, as well as the analysis of Wolff's distinctive recording session photos and Reid Miles's iconic cover designs. There are also exciting film clips of Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock playing Cantaloupe Island, Sonny Rollins blowing a stream of consciousness, quote-filled cadenza and Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis in a boogie-woogie throw-down. One of the film's most intriguing insights comes from the German critic and author Joachim Berendt who points out that "it was immigrants, foreigners and Jews who told Americans that your jazz is great art."

European musicians assimilating American jazz language and finding their own voice in it is the theme of Benedikt's 2007 film Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe. It's a more impressionistic film than the Blue Note documentary, more about feelings than chronology or community. Near the beginning of the film, there's a montage of American jazz giants—Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and others—accompanied by haunting, ethereal ECM-styled piano. It's startling, and at times a dreamlike clash of sound and image. Throughout the film you hear musicians testify how jazz accompanied the liberation of Europe and changed their lives. The actress and singer Juliet Greco explains that in the 1950s black American jazz musicians, free of racism, could relax in Paris and fall in love with French girls, remembering her love affair with Miles Davis. French pianist Martial Solal talks about the impact of American G.I.'s jamming with locals and sharing their jazz records. Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg describes the profound experience of watching American expatriate Dexter Gordon playing in Copenhagen. Another Dane, bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen matter-of-factly recalls why his mother gave him permission to work with the mentally-ill piano genius Bud Powell at age fifteen. German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff remembers with mild irritation that critics would judge Europeans by how well they imitated an American player. Eventually, some European...