On April 15th, overlooking New York City's Columbus Circle and Central Park in the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center will premiere the first episode of a four-part series titled Icons Among Us: jazz in the present tense that the Documentary Channel will broadcast exclusively beginning April 20th. The series, filmed at various locations including New Orleans, New York, Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Portland, and Seattle--through a partnership between Paradigm Studio and Don Q Rum in association with Rums of Puerto Rico--will air Monday nights at 9pm ET/PT, and it will feature artists such as Herbie Hancock, Terence Blanchard, Ravi Coltrane, Jason Moran, Wayne Shorter, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Charlie Hunter, Soulive, daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis, and The Bad Plus as well as other icons of the genre. The point of the project is to capture spontaneity and improvisation at the moment it happens in performance, that being executive producer and filmmaker John W. Comerford's mission for filming it from various angles and locales.
What started as a documentary covering up-and-coming contemporary jazz artists evolved into a celebration of the roots of the creative process. “Robert Fripp once described improvisational music as 'the assumption of innocence in the context of experience,'" Comerford states. “For jazz, it's the meeting of the childlike ability to be 'in the moment' with the experience associated with heritage." The filmmaker came to this conclusion over years of exploring his passion for music, having been drawn to acts such as Grateful Dead and experimental music of the '80s." After thoroughly submerging himself in the environment, Comerford concluded what most musicians have verbalized about the experience of spontaneity--that no matter what the genre, all music is intertwined since all creative impulses draw from the same well. He continues, “That energy is being created in an exponential way when it comes from that source. And it speaks to the American character and capacity for reinvention found in our culture, be it in our architecture or even our constitution. It's a huge part of our US identity."
What started as a documentary covering up-and-coming contemporary jazz artists evolved into a celebration of the roots of the creative process. “Robert Fripp once described improvisational music as 'the assumption of innocence in the context of experience,'" Comerford states. “For jazz, it's the meeting of the childlike ability to be 'in the moment' with the experience associated with heritage." The filmmaker came to this conclusion over years of exploring his passion for music, having been drawn to acts such as Grateful Dead and experimental music of the '80s." After thoroughly submerging himself in the environment, Comerford concluded what most musicians have verbalized about the experience of spontaneity--that no matter what the genre, all music is intertwined since all creative impulses draw from the same well. He continues, “That energy is being created in an exponential way when it comes from that source. And it speaks to the American character and capacity for reinvention found in our culture, be it in our architecture or even our constitution. It's a huge part of our US identity."
For more information contact All About Jazz.
