Word: jazzman
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...changed the course of jazz history with his lightning-fingered improvisations, rhythmic subtleties and harmonic genius -- not to mention the fast-living, drug-shooting life-style that led to his death at 34 and was, unfortunately, widely imitated by his contemporaries. One such was Dean Benedetti, a West Coast jazzman who copied Bird in every way he could, down to and including his own premature death at 34. But Benedetti left behind an extraordinary legacy: a cache of impromptu recordings that he had made of Parker's live performances in 1947-48. Now this long-lost treasure has been rediscovered...
...says, "jazz is the primary art form, especially New Orleans jazz. Because when it's played properly, it shows you how the individual can negotiate the greatest amount of personal freedom and put it humbly at the service of a group conception." He points to Ellington as the jazzman who best embodied the "mythology of this country" in his music...
...come to think of it, almost everyone else in a Spike Lee movie is a stereotype too. That's what crude, careless sensibilities like Lee's deal in. He means to be affable here and pay some sort of tribute to the world of his father Bill, a jazzman who wrote the film's score. But despite firsthand knowledge, his story of how the career of trumpeter Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington) is undone by pride, womanizing and unwise affection for a shiftless manager (played by Lee) is conventionally romantic, and so is his realization of its 'round-midnight atmosphere...
Frank Morgan is 56, and his time has finally rolled around. For a long while there, time looked as if it would roll right over him. He has lived out the sad stereotype of the jazzman's life: near genius, full junkie, part-time thief, full-time con. He spent most of the years between 1954 and 1985 behind bars. Not that he always minded. At San Quentin he was co-leader, with Art Pepper, of the warden's band. There was always a way -- an easy way -- to score whatever he wanted, from alcohol to cocaine. Most...
...offscreen wife, kids and mortgage in a way he finds more congenial than, say, selling aluminum siding. Banality is a hair shirt for Jack. His life is all squalid improvisation and silent disgust at tinkling out "piano stylings." He knows better, and he might do better, as a jazzman...