Thelonious Monk is a visual aesthete's dream. His right hand recklessly pecks at the keys like a wild chicken, yet with such precision and unsettling terseness. His left hand ambles between triads, complimenting his melody lines with either an uncomfortable amount of dissonance or a swinging bass line. His right foot shuffles back in forth propelled by a tacit rhythm only he can hear. At the piano, he is competent, commanding and powerful. Away from it, he is a mumbling smile and a spinning fool. Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser -- a documentary featuring Monk in wide array of live performances -- portrays the duality of Monk by juxtaposing a startling depiction of Monk's mental decline with his incongruent rise to jazz acclaim.
Tonight and tomorrow night one is being given the rare opportunity to see some of modern jazz's greatest innovators -- Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and the Sun Ra Arkestra -- up on the big screen.Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser, David, Charles and Ornette: The Ornette Coleman Trio 1966, Mingus and some recently discovered performance footage of the Sun Ra Arkestra are just some of the rare goodies "Forces In Motion: The New Wave in Jazz on Film" festival at the International House is planning on showing. The movies not only capture the importance of the jazz performance to the art form, but they give a small glimpse into the troubled lives of jazz musicians. They provide evidence of their interminable struggles for artistic integrity and recognition at the expense of their sanity and quite possibly, their dignity. Monk was schizophrenic. Mingus was evicted when he couldn't afford to pay his rent. Coleman had to fly to Paris to find work. These are documentaries of such pathos, who needs fiction?
On Thursday evening, there will be a screening of Shirley Clarke's The Connection followed by Straight, No Chaser. On Friday night, in addition to the films, the Sun Ra Arkestra will be on hand to accompany their silent footage from the 60's and 70's with some live music.
