IS THERE A PERFECT JAZZ MOVIE? PART FOUR: EUREKA!!
AND THE WINNER IS………………………..
Er- hang on – STOP PRESS!!!
A late entry has come to my attention which, if it was publicly available (and I really hope it will be in due course) would have come at least 2nd equal.
ETHAN IVERSON AND MARTIN SPEAKE IN “A JUMP INTO THE VOID”
This is a 40 minute short called A JUMP INTO THE VOID. Now finished, the filming was done in 2019 during, and as a fly-on-the-wall observation of, a 17-date British tour by the MARTIN SPEAKE INTERNATIONAL QUARTET, that is Martin, Ethan Iverson, Calum Gourlay and Jorge Rossy (or Jeff Williams on the dates Jorge couldn’t make).
Brilliantly directed by EMILE SCOTT BURGOYNE, wittily shot and edited, it is as true to life on life on the road and backstage in 2019 as my declared runner up LIVING JAZZ was in 1960. And it achieves more insight into the character of the musicians as well. The ending floors me:
“Has your relationship with the others changed over the course of the tour, Martin?”
“Do you mean musically or personally?”
“Both.”
“That’s a good question!”
Don’t miss A JUMP INTO THE VOID when it surfaces.
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Now. My search is over. My most perfect film getting under the skin of the jazz experience is
SVEN KLANG’S KVINTETT (Sweden 1976 directed by Stellan Olsson)
How can I summarise what this film means to me?
First off, it is a superb film. Indeed, it has been voted one of the 25 best Swedish films of all time. That’s saying something when you consider Bergman titles like Wild strawberries and The seventh seal!
Set in 1958 in a small provincial town (with forward flashes to the 70s to see what happened to the characters), it concerns a bass-playing dance-band leader and his semi-professional singer (a typist), pianist (still a student), drummer (factory worker) and a newly recruited saxophonist who plays in the Swedish army band.
The bandleader Sven Klang is a slick car-salesman and a pig. Narcissistic (always combing his greasy ducktail hair-do), bullying and sexually abusive towards the singer Gunnel, domineering with pianist Rolf and drummer Kennet who are in hock to him and unable to cope with the newcomer Lasse who plays fluent be-bop on his alto and may or may not be into hard drugs.
The essence of the film is the power struggle between Sven and Lasse for the souls of Rolf, Kennet and Gunnel.
Sven, increasingly drunk the more threatened he feels, wants to stick to safe Swedish folk hits and “old favourites like Whispering” which he thumps out in a leaden 2-to-the-bar. He likes to be the boss, cop the money and pay the others a pittance.
Lasse likes to blow on Groovin’ high over the chords of Whispering and he teaches Rolf and Kennet other be-bop lines plus even the Parker English country garden sign-off. He remonstrates with Sven for not sharing out the money equally. When provoked, he ridicules Sven’s bass playing and they come to blows.
But this is much more subtle that an obvious clash of personalities. Rolf and Kennet, although mediocre players, are sucked into the magic of be-bop and dream of forming a band with Lasse and without Sven. Just a dream of course.
Lasse, dishonourably discharged from the military and now appearing unshaven in the hipster garb of shades, crumpled raincoat, porkpie hat and tie at half mast, doesn’t want to know and goes back to Stockholm where he becomes a recording modern jazz name.
There are moments of comic relief as when the naïve Rolf and Kennet wonder if now heroin can be drunk out of a glass and whether that is what Lasse’s drink contains. Sven disillusions them. He takes a sip and comments that it’s gin and, if Lasse wants, he has some aftershave he can drink as well.
There is also a subplot about Sven getting Gunnel (who has fallen in love with Lasse) pregnant and then not forcing her to have an abortion as long as she comes back to sing with the band and does not cause him a scandal.
The film, which is pretty intense, probably needs these diversions but the main theme – dealt with so effectively – is the pull of the jazz life and its cost.
Sweden had its own real-life junkie jazz star LARS GULLIN and it seems that the Lasse character is partly based on him. Incredibly, Lars Gullin was recognised by the Swedish government and given a rent free farm to live in for the rest of his life plus an official supply of heroin! No such luck for the fictional Lasse (beautifully played by saxophonist CHRISTER BOUSTEDT). We hear that he has since died of an overdose but the last we see of him (the final shot of the film) is a hunched figure sitting on his saxophone case on an empty platform at Helsingborg station.
Meanwhile, Gunnel has moved to Malmo as a single mother with Sven’s child and has a successful career as a travel agent.
Sven (a bit of a shock) no longer sells cars but works in some kind of educational institute, still with as self-satisfied a smirk as ever.
Rolf and Kennet are apparently in boring middle-aged jobs. Kennet confirms that he gave up trying to be a drummer a while back.
However life (or death) has panned out for the five dramatis personae, it is JAZZ, the spirit, the magic, the danger of JAZZ which hovers over the film, giving it an aura and a meaning which, having suffused the entire plot, lingers in the viewer’s soul.
A work of genius.