Round Midnight, a film by Bertrand Tavernier

This music-forward 1986 film by French director Bertrand Tavernier showcases the work of bebop musicians in New York and especially Paris, where in 1959 tenor sax maestro Dale Turner, played by Dexter Gordon but inspired by Lester Young and Bud Powell, went to live. But it is the score that takes center stage – as it should! Finally, a film where the music really matters, with the images and story woven as background through inspired edits. 

Clearly Tavernier loves jazz – he would not interrupt a song to show the daily life of an alcoholic or Francis, the young Frenchman who, obsessed with his playing, meets his idol, befriends him, and finally looks after him. The music carries the movie. Herbie Hancock, who won an Oscar for Best Score, did a wonderful job – from Round Midnight to Body and Soul, Fair Weather, Una Noche con Francis, and How Long Has This Been Going On, the songs are performed live, with the musicians alternately playing onscreen and going about their lives. 

Gordon, also nominated for an Oscar for his performance, plays as only a truly accomplished musician can – but he also spices his role with asides to young Francis – “Was I good?” he asks with a mischievous grin after cadging drinks, or escaping a hospital ward, or finally prevailing on the nightclub owner and his "minder" to pay him nightly like every other musician. And Francis grins back and agrees he was good. 

Gordon was near the end of his life when he took this role, and you can see his exhaustion and precarious health, but also his rich mastery born of a lifetime of improvising, performing, and exploring new depths in his musical expression. Tavernier reminds us – to our benefit – that the pitfalls of an artist’s life are not what’s important about them: it’s what they create.

They Shot the Piano Player, a film by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba

I love the Denver Film Festival, now in its 46th year! Depending on their reception, some of these offerings go on to wider distribution, but most you'll probably never have another chance to see on a big screen. If you love film and there's a festival in your area, you should go!

They Shot the Piano Player, a 2022 animated film, is the story of a Bossa Nova pianist with a tragically short career. Tenorio Jr. was a gifted young pianist who pioneered some of the great new syncopated jazz sounds in the early 1960s that captivated Brazil then the jazz world. He played with some of the greats: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, and many others, but only recorded one album before he simply disappeared. A New York writer working on a book in 2010 about Latin jazz listens to that album then wants to know more. 

His curiosity, and love of Tenorio Jr.’s music, take him to Rio, to Buenos Aires, to the homes and haunts of many musicians who played with him and admired him; gradually he disentangles the story of Tenorio Jr.’s disappearance in 1976 while visiting Buenos Aires. At that time, all over Central and South America, military coups, funded by the CIA as a means of “stabilizing” their political landscape, were rounding up not only dissidents and Communists, but artists, students, musicians, anyone whether overtly political or not, whom they deemed threats. 

So we get our history lesson, but alongside it we enjoy some great music and captivating images courtesy of the film’s animation team. This movie is well worth seeing on a large screen in a theater with a good sound system, where you can enjoy it at its best.