“These bands are surviving on their performance.”
“That’s the time when we can forget about the bullsh*t.”
“If I wasn’t here, somebody’d be here doin’ it. It’s like love, when you fall in love with somebody, you can’t explain why you do what you do, you just do it, because you feel like you have to, and that’s the nature of jazz music.”
There’s a world of jazz that continues to thrive, reinvent itself, and forge ahead in revolutionary reinterpretations outside of the usual studio-driven, trend-centered machinery known as Top 40. This exclusive jazz world is peopled by modern-day versions of Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, and Chick Corea (happy 70th birthday, btw), the next generation of musicians who keep plugging away despite their relative mainstream obscurity, fighting to keep their musical visions alive, and searching for ever growing forums: the Esperanza Spaldings, Terence Blanchards, Bill Frisell, Matthew Shipp, Ravi Coltrane, Gretchen Parlato, Greg Osby…
These modern-day jazz icons, and many more, have generously contributed their positive, inspiring thoughts on the state of jazz, some of the challenges, the many creative, evolving fusions, critical viewpoints on the profit-driven studio machinery in a four-part, four-DVD documentary series, Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense.
The highly stylized, infinitely cool Icons Among Us—produced by Paradigm Studio in partnership with Don Q Rum—also showcases live concert footage from those jazz artists and the artists they view as heroes and mentors, people like Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, and Dianne Reeves. Producer John W. Comerford and co-directors Michael Rivoira, Lars Larson, and Pete J. Vogt pieced the documentary together from seven years of high-def interviews with 80-plus jazz icons and 30-plus-hours of live performances in U.S. and European clubs, festivals, concert venues on super 16 mm film.
This series was released on April 26th by Indiepix Films/Naxos of America as a 220-minute, educational DVD boxed set, which includes the Fully Monty of the feature film, bonus features, a 62-page study/discussion guide, and lots of extras not found on the cable or theater versions.
On April 15, 2009, Icons Among Us was first introduced as a TV series on the Documentary Channel via Dish and DirecTV, then released as a 93-minute, feature-length film via Amazon.com/iTunes on May 11, 2010 on DVD/VOD (Video on Demand). It’s enjoyed much success on the film festival circuit – AFI Fest, SIFF, Mill Valley Film Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, PDX Jazz Fest, and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival – and it’s been seen at the Smithsonian Institution and Berklee College of Music in presentations, as well as far-off lands like China, Russia, Brazil, Israel, Australia, Spain, France, Denmark, Peru, and the UK.
Purchase the 95-minute feature film version of Icons Among Us at various establishments: All About Jazz’s store, Amazon.com, Netflix, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and IndiePix. The 220-minute, four-part educational DVD/CD-ROM series—released this past April—can be found through distributors IndiePix and Naxos.
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