CLINT EASTWOOD

Actor, director, aficionado, pianist... genius

No one doubts about the importance of jazz in the films by Clint Eastwood as a director, or the influence that he, with his passion for music, causes in jazz musicians. Those relationships between the characters, those Far West landscapes or those honkytonks would not "sound" the same way without jazz. That particular vision of Clint Eastwood of the vain attempts of Charlie Parker to remain standing or the complicated (and invisible) world of Thelonious Monk are part of the bible of jazz, of that dictionary that explains how and why the current jazz has become what it is. In appreciation, a wide jam of present musicians met on October 17, 1996 at Carnegie Hall in New York to record a concert to celebrate this passion for each other or, as said George Wein, host of the event, the successful way he includes jazz in his scenes.

Released on DVD but not very easy to get, Eastwood After Hours includes themes that have appeared in his films. As a tribute, it's great: it combines an impressive cast of musicians for the occasion. Barry Harris and Kenny Barron play four hands Misty (Errol Garner), an issue that was the protagonist and the catalyst on Eastwood's first film as director. Claude Williams makes a fabulous version of San Antonio Rose (Honkytonk Man, 1982), in which Clint appeared with his son Kyle, who has composed several soundtracks, and participates in this concert with his quartet playing a version of This time the dream's on me from the movie Bird . In this track, of course, the protagonist is the sax (Doug Webb).

Among the sidemen of the rhythm section (who play almost the whole concert) are Christian McBride on bass and Kenny Washington on drums. I also really liked the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band with Kevin Mahogany, with Charles McPherson, Joshua Redman or with a superb soprano James Rivers playing the theme of Thightrope (1984), interspersed with suggestive and intriguing images from the film, with touches of blues ranging in crescendo with the help of the big band ...

Thelonius Monk jr. Thelonious Monk jr. (A.K.A. TS Monk ) appears in versions of Straight no chaser (which names the documentary), Round Midnight and I see your face before (The Bridges of Madison), although the fireworks are on charge of James Carter and Joshua Redman in the saxophones a few minutes before, playing a tremendous version of Straight No Chaser / Now 's the time in a duet at full speed, endless. It could not be more powerful. There is a spectacular finish, orgasmic:


A few issues later, Redman has another magic moment, when in Lester leaps in all the saxophones that have participated in the concert (James Rivers, James Moody, Charles McPherson, James Carter and Flip Phillips, Roy Hargrove on the flugelhorn), join. Every one contributes with his "Prez side". I could say that this is my favorite time of the concert, but later is Eastwood himself who appears on stage to thank and to play the piano, a blues with his initials, After Hours / CE Blues, accompanied by Jay McShann James Moody, Roy Hargrove and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, just the moment and the place where all of us would like to be, there, on the stage of The Carnegie Hall, surrounded by the best musicians and Eastwood ... He is the Grand Aficionado.

I know sometimes I get carried away by passion, but I think you will agree with me that this is one of those shows all of us would have liked to attend.

I'M A FOOL TO WANT YOU

On myths and monsters

The ballad begins with a statement. The piano plays the melody and draws it accurately, not merely an introduction. Marks an idea. Then the tenor bursts gently but forcefully. It is a lament. The brushes make a laconic pace that seems to hold the saxophone. The piano builts a fund of high notes, precious, memories of what it was, what it could be, what is no longer, we now explain why the sax laments. I'm a fool to want you (Sinatra) is included on the album Ballads (Blue Note, 1991), a collection of standards that allow us to judge Dexter Gordon's potential in slow songs. The pianist is Barry Harris and the drummer is Billy Higgins.

Dexter Gordon was a singular bopper. From his beginnings with Lionel Hampton and Fletcher Henderson he drank the sense that there is nothing written that cannot be overcome, from the days of Bird and Dizzy's bebop Dexter inherited what was going to survive to his folly, what would survived for years, of his own way of playing many tenors have drawn conclusions. Obscured by the brightness of other contemporary tenors such as Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, Dexter was a great guy in every sense of the word. Women felt impressed by his height, men by the force his presence suggested. However, he was able to extract from his sax powerful and sweet (at the same time) ballads without becoming maudlin. And this is enough merit to hear this disc.

The saxophone is one of the most representative instruments of jazz. In fact, if you ask a layman, he will always point to this instrument. But the saxophone is a relatively new invention. Adolphe Sax created it in 1840. Professional musicians of the 19th century compared its sound with a "clarinet with double pneumonia." Someone said recently that it sounded like an inspired donkey. I can not remember who it was. Maybe I read it.

Adolphe Sax used to suffer insults when people heared the sound of the sax for the first time. Anyone who is not a musician and had tried to make it sound knows what I mean. Someone wrote in a medical journal of the era that sax produced consumption! Sax finally escaped from persecution and established a good amount of instruments, including a so delicate, a technical marvel: the flugelhorn .

I always think about these stories when I listen to I'm a fool to want you. The sensitivity of the tenor sax touches me and I cannot help concluding that in this world of miseries and atrocities, Dexter Gordon is a myth and a monster, in the artistic meaning of this words.
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* Photo: Dexter Gordon on 1948, perhaps the picture that best describes him. By Herman Leonard, of course.

WILLIAM P. GOTTLIEB

Perfection in the paradox

Gottlieb, known as "Mr. Jazz", became interested in music when a piece of bad meat caused him a trichinosis and forced him to a tedious convalescence that he mitigated with jazz records and magazines. Despite this bad start, his relationship with twentieth-century music is one of the most productive and celebrated in the world of photography.


William P. Gottlieb's destiny was not to be a photographer. He was set up with a job at the Washington Post, without providing any merit, and ended up in the Publications section. To earn some extra money, he suggested to the editor the possibility of a section of jazz photographs. He had to buy his own camera, a Speed Graphic, the same that the journalists used all the time. Although he wanted to write he became a photographer and still now, in his way, is established as the standard of what we today would call "a typical photograph of jazz."

William P. Gottlieb was a perfectionist. Having to pay his own films and magnesium flash lamps, which were single-use, put all the care in the world to portray the right time. He knew the musicians, their tics and their ways, so just he had to put a little patience to find the ideal time to take a picture, two at most per night. In order not to waste this gift negative his photos were born as ideal (few, but perfect) that have become essential.

William P. Gottlieb came to own his own jazz column, his own radio show, and was known as the organizer of dance competitions (of swing, of course) and jam sessions where the best musicians met, and he lived the best time of jazz, 40 and 50. However, suddenly he left. He went from being the gold standard in the jazz world in black and white to engage in educational films. He continued with photography, but never returned to jazz. Even today nobody knows why. Fortunately, in 1995 the Library of Congress of the United States acquired 1600 Gottlieb negatives and slides, as well as framed photos and contact strips with the help of Ira & Leonore S. Gershwin Fund. They are available on the Library website for American Memory , and since this summer at Flickr. I cannot think of a better way to remember and to inspire photographers to come.

Everything around him is paradoxical and, however, perfect, as if everything would have been to arrive by chance, take a single image and check that it was a masterpiece.

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Photographs:

* Top: Gottlieb with his Speed Graphic, July 1997 (photo by Jim Higgins)

** The best photo of Billie Holiday made by Gottlieb at Downbeat, New York, February 1947.

*** Django Reinhardt in the New York club called Aquarium, November 1946

**** Spectacular photo of Sidney Bechet. Behind are Freddie Moore, Lloyd Phillips, and Bob Wilber. Taken at Jimmy Ryan's Club, New York, June 1947.