Search - Ornette Coleman Trio: Sound?? Featuring Roland Kirk & John Cage on DVD

Modern. Crazy. Essential. Free. ORNETTE KIRK and Company

Nikica Gilic | Zagreb, Croatia | 12/13/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Stylistically speaking, this is a festival of modernity: two short musical films by Dick Fontaine - "David, Moffet & Ornette" from 1966. and "Sound??" from 1967 uses some modernist cinematic techniques (rambling hand-held camera, unpredictable editing...) to depict quite extraordinary phenomena...

The first film shows us Ornette Coleman's multiinstrumentalist trio (with David Izenson on bass and Charles Moffet on drums and percussions...); they're working on a soundtrack and discuss their lives and music.
The second film alternates between Roland Kirk's wild explorations in the richness of sound with John Cage's poetic musings on the nature of sound and the music in general/plus some glimpses of Cage at his musical work...
While Cage alone would seem pompous (at least to me), seeing Kirk interact with his audience (or children and ZOO animals) really gives deep truthfulness to Cage's lyrical philosophy...

Musically speaking, Coleman's group gives more modern (free jazz) performance, while Kirk, juggling with incredible number of instruments, is more deeply rooted in the blues and mainstream/swing/bop tradition, but their music is complementary as it is different... They just explore the possibilities of sound in various directions.

If you like modern jazz (or John Cage) you'll certainly like this DVD.
My first complaint is that the cover shows Coleman much older than he is in the film, which might confuse some buyers (I was well informed before purchasing this).
My second complaint is that there is no booklet inside the box; there's so much to write about this material...

BTW
Both films are in black and white; both are between 20 and 25 minutes long.
Also; Kirk was filmed at Ronnie Scott's club."