Imaginative Music

Ron Mann’s first feature-length documentary, Imagine the Sound (1981), makes its DVD debut on Morningstar’s bare bones but memorable release, and it’s probably the most accessible and unpretentious intro to free jazz - that loose, rule-breaking jazz offshoot in which melody, structure, tempo, and the usual round of solos by every band member are set aside in place of more cerebral and sometimes nutty concepts of improvisation and performance art.

Mann’s film features rare interviews with Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, and Kenny Werner, plus some lengthy performances that punctuate some of the marvelously entertaining and illuminating articulations by these marginalized artists.

Also reviewed are two excellent CDs:

- Daleko od okna / Far from the Window (2000), Michal Lorenc’s beautifully moving score for Jan Jakub Kolski's film adaptation of Hanna Krall's WWII writings, released by Poland’s Soundtracks.PL
- Expressing the Inexpressible, an excellent compilation CD featuring scores to various short films scored by newcomer Douglas Romayne. Beautiful orchestrations, and some fine orchestral writing.


- MRH

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