'Round Midnight

Dexter Gordon plays Dale Turner, an aging tenor sax player at the end of his days. Beaten but unbowed by years of drug and alcohol abuse Turner arrives in Paris (1959) for a gig at a small, smoky, jazz club. Acknowledged as one of the greats he is joined by other stellar musicians as he quietly struggles to quell his demons and make great music. For a while, at least, he succeeds at both. Gently constructed without much plot this movie is a treat for all, and a grand slam home run for jazz fans.

A vivid portrait of a Bud Powell/Lester young type who, like the vast majority of American jazz artists, receives more appreciation and love for his art overseas than here in the U.S. even though this is where Jazz was born.

It saddens me every time I watch it because jazz is still so under-appreciated in this country. And we can largely thank commercial radio for that.

You don't have to be a jazz fan to love this film, but it helps! Seeing so many jazz greats was a pleasure, and hearing them jam was inspiring. Short on plot but long on carefully crafted acting -Dexter Gordon was magnificent.

'Round Midnight (1986)

If you love jazz, and especially if you love bebop and the 1940s and 50s music carried on by the real Dexter Gordon (who stars here), you ought to like this movie a lot. Or at least like and love the music.

And the music is great, with Herbie Hancock taking the Oscar that year for original score. Gordon is excellent, too, playing the fictional character, Dale Turner, not so different from his real life, as Gordon lived in Paris for years because the jazz scene was still alive there for him. The movie is based on a book loosely based on two earlier jazzmen, however: the great and troubled Bud Powell who played piano and of course the legendary Lester Young who played, like Dale Turner, the tenor sax.

And so do I, sort of. I love this stuff, the music and even the lore a bit, the individuals that make up that fifty years or so of classic jazz.

But the music is not entirely the movie. As a plot, a series of meaningful events and conversations, this is meandering (which can be wonderful in a better film) and sometimes poorly acted and poorly written. It's full of stupid clichés, frankly. And in fact it seems like what it probably is: an outsider's rosy-eyed vision of the American jazz scene as it was transplanted in Paris. It's filled with inevitable smoky rooms, quirky characters, tough but marginalized woman, alcoholic men, and dark nights. I'm sure that's accurate in the outline, but it comes off as naive and pre-packaged. Add the final element, that the music is played for a bunch of White Europeans who really love it but don't actually get it (sorry to say) the way it was "gotten" here in America, or was back in the day. It all rings false. Increasingly.

I'd love to know what other insider jazz people think of this portrayal. Watching the Ken Burns documentary of jazz series with all the clips and comments gives another kind of false view, aggrandizing as it is, but is has all the elements of truth built in to know something of the honesty and difficulty of the scene in the States. Director and writer Bertrand Tavernier is trying something noble, and probably coming from a love of jazz, but it's almost unwatchable as a movie.

In fact, it's almost insulting with all the clichés—the troubled French man who loves it all in a wide-eyed way and is supposed to show a rare empathy for the poor unappreciated Americans at the top. And that's the core of the movie. He says, more than once in different ways, "Your music changed my life." Yeah, yeah, of course! That's still not going to fill two hours on the screen.

Take these comments with some salt—the movie got lots of nominations for awards. And Dexter Gordon is terrific in his acting (if not always his somewhat stiff playing), which is a kind of revelation. And it might be enjoyable for the lack of glitz here, for all the quiet (a.k.a. boring for some) conversations. You'll get the feel in the first twenty minutes.

And love the music. That's a good full half of this troubled movie.

The one thing I remember about this film is Dexter Gordon's voice. Weary, sad, and wry. It's a voice that has played a lot of sad songs and smoked a lot of cigarettes, and it's a beautiful instrument in its own way. Gordon plays Dale Turner, an expatriate jazz musician in Paris and a recovering heroin addict. This film is the story of his time in Paris and his eventual return to New York City. This film slightly parallels Gordon's own life - he too was a former heroin addict who spent much of his career in Paris, eventually returning home to New York City. A very touching and lovely ode to the beauty of jazz music, and a film that gave Dexter Gordon a deserved career comeback late in his life. Not to be missed.