Comments on: Visual jazz.

Visual jazz.

progosk — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:32:25 -0800

(Follow-upFilter) It's rare that jazz videos venture beyond filming live performances. This makes the exceptions all the more notable. Animation seems the medium of choice: from George Griffin's 1988 paper collage for Charlie Parker's "Ko Ko" to Len Lye's swinging The Lambeth Walk (1939), or (stretching musical definitions just a bit) his 1958 masterpiece "Free Radicals". More recent jazz seems to fit just as well: witness Lung's psychotic piece for Ladyscraper's "Thou Art Fucking Dead".

Unofficial jazz videomakers have also picked up on the animation vibe, setting John Zorn's "Caligula" to Robert Breer's 1957 piece "A Man And His Dog Out For Air", creating a fan-film-direct for Pierre Henry's futuristic "Psyche Rock", or even just re-editing Disney's "Elephants on Parade" to Sun Ra's version of the tune. But there are non-animated jazz videos, too: take the Lounge Lizards' "Big Heart", self-directed by John Lurie; or Henry Hills' "Naked City" for John Zorn's "Batman"; Meredith Monk's "Churchyard Entertainment", or even, on a lighter note, Dizzy Gillespie in "A Date with Dizzy" (1956). If these are too short for your visual jazz appetite, you could try long-form works such as Manfred Kirchheimer's beautifully meditative 1979 film "Stations Of The Ele vated with its (counter-)punctuations of Mingus, John Coney's 1972 sci-fi documentary on Sun Ra "Space Is The Place", or Humbert & Penzel's Fred Frith fresco "Step Across The Border" (previously).

By: caddis

caddis — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:29:09 -0800

Excellent post! Some really fun stuff here.

By: box

box — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:50:03 -0800

Thanks, progosk--some neat stuff here. If you like jazz and animation, you might enjoy the work of John and Faith Hubley, and the jazz::animated blog.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:38:40 -0800

Bookmarked for exploration. Thanks so much for the post.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:54:55 -0800

Awesome, but now I have to install quicktime, damn.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:59:03 -0800

Norman McLaren's Begone dull care is pretty much the benchmark for this style of thing.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:35:06 -0800

Gjon Mili films Lester Young in Jammin' the Blues.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:59:16 -0800

Just to note that it's often the best posts that accumulate the fewest comments. Thanks again.

By: progosk

progosk — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:25:10 -0800

jonp72: well-shot performances are actually the rarest pearls of all, thanks for that one. Wolof, box: I wanted to avoid too much previousing, but - yeah. Oh, and: jokeefe? 'preciated.

By: Wolof

Wolof — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:26:48 -0800

Nice post, by the way, thanks a lot.

By: progosk

progosk — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:20:37 -0800

A johnny-come lately: a brief but tasty rendition of Salt Peanuts, by immensely talented animator Marc Sutherland. (via anipages.)

By: progosk

progosk — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:39:34 -0800

Oh, ok, just one more: Joni Mitchell's The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines, by Tim Jerram.