Last week, I screened a fairly battered print of Shirley Clarke's 1961 film of Jack Gelber's play The Connection for a film discussion group I reguarly attend on Friday evenings. Reaction to the film was somewhat ambivalent, which I take to be indicative of the work's enduring value and ability to upset. The music in the film, wirtten by pianist Freddie Redd and performed by The Freddie Redd Quartet featuring Jackie McLean (at the time unable to play in NYC nightclubs due to his prior narcotics convictions), made perhaps the greatest impact on the group. And, at first, I was surprised, given the resistance I have encountered to "jazz" among other friends and acquaintances.
But then I recall how I never properly understood "hard bop" as a style with an identity all its own until I listened intently to Redd's score nearly 10 years ago (summer of '93, I think...). Rollins, Silver, Blakey -- none of them really worked for me until I got into the melodrama of Redd's music. Classic hard bop is a kind of melodrama: a street-wise melodrama, but melodrama all the same. The music of Tina Brooks -- an associate of Redd's who turns in remarkable performances on a couple of post-Connection Redd recordings (e.g., "Shadows" from the Blue Note LP Shades Of Redd) -- a prime example of this, I think.
In a film, a drama, immersed in private and ruthless apathy, in bad puns and the hell of self-referentiality, the moments of naked emotion -- even emotion expressed in as highly a codified and non-verbal fashion as "program music" -- feel like the water that is not exactly everywhere and that really is fit to drink.
Or, as one character from the film has it:
That's the way it is. That's the way it really is.
I dig Joe’s annotations of this film almost as much as the film itself.
Random thoughts. I remember picking up the soundtrack in the first batch of Blue Note Connoisseur titles back in the summer of 93’ (along with Ornette’s THE EMPTY FOXHOLE and Andrew Hill’s JUDGEMENT) & marveling that the material was finally available in cd form. As I mentioned elsewhere recently, the actor who plays Leach totally reminds me of Steve Buscemi both in terms of appearance and affect. The succession of various characters disappearing into the john one at a time to shoot up is a brilliantly simple device that’s stuck with me for years.
Hardbop as a genre confused me for awhile too, even after reading Rosenthal’s book on the subject. The boundaries with bop & ‘post-bop’ just seemed too blurred. But now there are albums that I’d definitely single out as being representative of the style- THE CONNECTION being a prime contender.
A side note: Tina Brooks also plays on a version of the film score reissued by Boplicity Records (sharing the frontline with Howard McGhee). It’s not as well-rehearsed or cohesive as the Blue Note version, but a fine complement just the same.
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