My review was written in June 1992 after a screening in Greenwich Village for the JVC Jazz Film Festival.
An entertaining but misleading jazz documentary, "Texas Tenor" is for mid-level and advanced fans of the music. Neophytes will learn precious little about Illinois Jacquet and his secure but minor place in jazz history.
Director Arthur Elgor strongly captures Jacquet in performance at New York's Blue Note club in 1988 and on tour in Europe in 1990. Jacquet's energetic soloing, in the so-called Texas school of playing that he pioneered with Herschel Evans, Arnett Cobb and Buddy Tate, speaks for itself in presenting an unreconstructed form of swing music popular in the 1940s.
Where Elgort lets the viewer down is in sketchy research and mis-emphasis. Jazz giants such as Lionel Hampton (who had Jacquet switch from alto to tenor sax and made him a star in 1942), Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins make unenlightening comments about Jacquet and the lasting importance of his popular solo on Hampton's hit "Flying Home",
Morten Sandtroen's closeup black & white photography atmospherically captures the club and European locations as well as Jacquet's passion while playing. The Louisiana-born tenor man's colleagues and pals (Tate, Milt Hinton, Cecil Payne) are friendly enough to win over any viewer's sympathy,
Several key omissions dilute the film's impact. Hovering in the background is the star's manager, Carol Scherick, an elderly woman who never gets to put her two cents in. She remains too enigmatic, especially in light of other, rather pointless, interviews here.
Documentary never mentions, let alone shows, Jacquet playing the bassoon; he's virtually the only jazz soloist on that particular instrument.
Pic is first in a planned series by Elgort profiling "American Heroes", including pianist Dorothy Donegan (who appears briefly here) and rodeo star Bruce Ford.
