IN CINEMA
SURVIVAL BLUES – JACKIE McLEAN ON MARS +
MINGUS
Made In Harlem: Cinema Blues
Thursday, February 27th at 7PM
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
JACKIE McLEAN ON MARS
Ken Levis, 1980, 32 min. digital
MINGUS: CHARLIE MINGUS 1968
Thomas Reichmann, 1968, 58 min. 16mm
These two cinematic portraits – of Jackie McLean as he pivots to academia in lieu of work, and Charles Mingus on the eve of eviction from his NYC apartment – illustrate the harsh economic reality for practicing jazz musicians, even at the height of their creative powers.
Screening followed by a solo bass performance from Brandon Lopez!
BRANDON LOPEZ is a bassist and composer living in New York City. His work deals with improvisation and finding new sonic possibilities on the double bass. He has collaborated with Fred Moten, Gerald Cleaver, John Zorn, The Mat Maneri Quartet, Nate Wooley’s “knknighgh”, Satoko Fuji, Zeena Parkins, Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey, Standing On The Corner, Cecilia Lopez, Ash Fure, Joe Morris, Tyshawn Sorey and the New York Philharmonic. He is currently an instructor of improvisation and bass at the New School for Jazz.
About Made In Harlem: Cinema Blues:
Cinema Blues is a monthly series at the Maysles Documentary Center dedicated to the convergence of jazz and film. Rather than focus on movies soundtracked by jazz, it foregrounds documentaries that capture the many facets of the music and culture; the living history of jazz, its performance, the spiritual & political philosophies of its creators, and the racism & economic struggles they have consistently faced. In this sense, Cinema Blues = a blues cinema, a filmic accounting (in the tradition of writers like Amiri Baraka, A. B. Spellman, Val Wilmer) of the real-life stakes (and breaks) that inform the great Black American classical music. The series also features poetic and experimental films that evoke the spontaneous creativity of the music (cinema as jazz), lectures, panel discussions & musical performances.
Cinema Blues takes its title from a tune by Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and is curated by Andrew Castillo. The series is made possible by the generous support of the West Harlem Development Corporation (WHDC).
