Jazz Icons: Series 4 (review)

Jazz is a music of the moment, a spontaneous conversation in which the rich vocabularies and rhetorical practices of individual musicians come together to create a unique and seemingly organic artistic experience. As such, jazz aficionados, musicians, and scholars alike frequently build libraries filled not only with the “official” studio releases of their favorite artists but also tapes, compact discs, and videotapes—often bearing the traces of innumerable generations of transfers—that document club dates, rare broadcasts, and unreleased cuts that allow listeners to eavesdrop on and glean new insights from the creative processes of jazz musicians. In their latest edition of the Jazz Icons series, producers David Peck, Phillip Galloway, and Tom Gulotta present brilliantly remastered films of seven jazz legends on 8 DVDs whose work revolutionized the medium. But, more important, Jazz Icons: Series 4 offers a fleeting glimpse into the rich archives of European television studios, wherein lie hundreds of hours of film that will fundamentally reshape our understanding of jazz as an expressive medium, the still under-researched history of jazz in Europe, and mid-twentieth-century television production practices. Combining rare footage, meticulous liner notes written by renowned scholars and critics, and diligent remastering, the films in Jazz Icons: Series 4 constitute essential viewing for scholars and practitioners alike.

The thirteen concert performances offered in this series capture several influential jazz artists at key moments in their careers, documenting culminating events, new beginnings, and ad hoc performances that, until now, have been known in lore only. Woody Herman: Live in ’64, for example, showcases the so-called “Swinging Herd” in its prime, less than two years after its formation. Featuring trumpeter Bill Chase, trombonist Phil Wilson, and saxophonist Sal Nistico, the band rips through pianist Nat Pierce’s arrangements of Charles Mingus’s “Better Git Hit in Your Soul” and Oscar Peterson’s “Hallelujah Time,” blending precise ensemble playing and improvisatory inventiveness that drew freely from the Herman orchestra’s rich swing heritage while heralding the new wave of big bands to be heard in later iterations of the Herman, Buddy Rich, and Stan Kenton groups. The three Coleman Hawkins performances here—from the June 1962 Adolphe Sax Festival, an October 1964 BBC broadcast, and a December 1966 concert at London’s Poplar Town Hall— focus on an artist in decline. Comparison of the three takes on “Disorder at the Border” reveal an ever-weakening Hawkins who, with failing breath and a terminal battle with alcoholism, relies more and more on the talents of such occasional swing-era sidemen as trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison, pianist Teddy Wilson, and drummers “Papa” Jo Jones and Louie Bellson. On the other hand, performances by pianist Errol Garner and flugelhornist Art Farmer depict influential improvisers in their prime, offering clinics for aspiring musicians and professionals alike.

At the same time, this archive allows a rare opportunity to examine the musically sensitive cinematographic approaches taken by several European television directors in the 1960s and 1970s. Some films, such as the two concerts presented in Anita O’Day: Live in ’63 and ’70, situate the television viewer in the audience, looking out from the room to the stage and recreating the concert experience from a variety of angles. More often, though, these concert films create their own narratives that enrich the viewing experience. Such is the case in Jimmy Smith: Live in ’69, which captures a December 1969 concert at Paris’s Salle Pleyel. Using a four-camera shoot, directors Jean-Jacque Célérier and Jean Bescont present a rare, behind-the-console look at Smith’s virtuosic organ technique, including tight shots of his right foot working the bass pedals and crisp footage of his seemingly effortless chordal runs in the first of two takes on “Satin Doll” on this disc. Similarly, in Art Farmer: Live in ’64, slow dissolves and dolly shots present a smooth and understated visual aesthetic that supported Famer’s and guitarist Jim Hall’s cool, intellectual approach. These discs only scratch the surface of these intelligent...