Re: [Harp-L] Biopics like Cadillac Records - Round Midnight & Dexter

["Bill" <bill.eborn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yeah, lovely film!

....and Dexter, not playing at his best maybe but great to see.  I was talking to a friend, a percussionist who's just started to play sax and saw it and hadn't been all that knocked out by the playing and was able to introduce him to Dexter at his best - his tone, his definition, the way he hangs back from the beat on ballads like on his beautiful version of Tenderly for example or be bang on top of it on more up tempo stuff ike Our Love Is Here To Stay or Love For Sale.  

When i was 18, fresh from inheriting my grandad's old Billie Holliday, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson ep's, I walked into a record shop and got seduced by this great album cover with a picture of Dexter, tenor laying across his lap, post gig (or whatever) haze in his eyes with a plume of cigarette smoke billowing forth and became a jazz nut. And the amazing thing is 27 or so years later i can still listen to that album and hear new things.  

The other thing that's great about that film for me is that whilst the central theme might be focussed around a battle with addiction - which of course Dexter would have known a thing or two about - there's no simplistic moralising or preaching, it deals with context, like when Dexter's friend Vincent talks to Herbie after Dexter is ill after a binge and asks why he gets like that and herbie explains that if you have to stand up and explore in public that hard night after night, you need to find some method of release.  herbie's character cooked, which is preferable methinks!

Anyway i'm looking forward to cadillac records - it's not out over here yet.  Hopefully i'll be able to see it at the Duke of York's Brighton's arthouse type cinema so i can have sensibly priced homemade cake and tea beforehand instead of overpriced coke and popcorn but with Beyonce in there maybe not!

Cheers

Bill 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ken Deifik 
  To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:55 PM
  Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Biopics like Cadillac Records


  Bill reminded us:

    Oh and Round Midnight! - director Bertrand Tavernier, musical direction by Herbie Hancock, who also appears as the piano player, Dexter Gordon in the lead role.

  I totally forgot about that one. I loved it.

  A biopic in that the main character was a combination of Lester Young and Bud Powell, and the music was real - real Dexter G.

  But not a biopic, really.

  There are other great music movies, but shoehorning a fictionalized account of a real and celebrated musician into the biopic form -- I'm gonna rack up a whole bunch of two-hours missing them from now on.

  I may live longer than many who know me consider possible.