The Gig

This is an enjoyable movie. Its very realistic to the "wonderful world of music" I've been there and done that. It shows a human element in each character and the realism that nobody is perfect. These amateur musicians weren't all that bad players. Cleavon Little's character, Marshall Tucker, was played very well. Marshall was no saint himself. Here he was getting paid to do a job and he's giving these guys a hard time about everything in the van on the way up there. You don't bite the hands that feed you. I do find it hard to believe that a player with the jazz experience he has, claims he does not know any of the dixieland tunes. He has a tremendous sense of predicting chord changes to tunes he does not know. Not common, but not unheard of either. He delivers a true and harsh message at the end of the movie when he tells the clarinet player, "its not a religion, devotion is not enough." On that level, he is correct, although I think the clarinet player could have handled the job. He was practicing his butt off and vocal accompaniment music is not that hard to read. Very enjoyable movie.

"The Gig" is a tight, funny and poignant little movie about a group of friends that have gathered together on a regular basis to play Dixieland for fun. The group unexpectedly lands a real paying job, in musician's parlance; a "gig".

They travel to upstate NY for a two week gig at a summer resort minus one member, who bows out due to contracting cancer. At the last minute, they hire a professional to take his place. Things get sticky as an over-the-hill Frankie Valli type attempts a comeback at the resort and tries to utilize the group as his band.

The attitude the professional bass player gave the guys rang true. By signing up to play the two-week gig, they were taking bread out of the mouths of someone who needed the job to feed his or her family. While Pop, Rock, Rap, Country and Western, and R&B stars make money off of albums. Jazz musicians have to travel abroad to make a living. Almost nobody gets rich. The guys living their dream also cost others a needed income.

I believe that almost everyone who can play a musical instrument with some proficiency dreams about playing a paying "gig" one time or another, Woody Allen and Kevin Bacon are two popular examples of this amateur-to-professional crossover. I especially recommend this movie to anyone who has ever played music professionally. My mom, who was a musician, LOVED it.

My review was written in November 1985 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.

"The Gig" is a winning little film about a group of guys who try to fulfill their dream of being jazz players. Self-distributed by filmmaker Frank D. Gilroy, this comedy-drama should win favor with older audiences who can identify easily with the ingenious premise and situations.

Wayne Rogers toplines as a New York businessman who has played Dixieland jazz with his five pls for their own amusement once a week since 1970. He arranges a two-week pro engagement at Paradise Manor hotel in the Catskills and ultimately talks the group into taking the step, the convincing argument being when their bass player George (Stan Lachow) drops out due to a major illness, promoting solidarity among the other five.

The replacement bassist, veteran player Marshall Wilson (Cleavon Little), causes friction in the group, not so much because he's black and they're white but because of his unfriendly personality and condescending attitude towards the budding amateurs. Filmmaker Gilroy gets maximum comic mileage out of this contrast, while making good points concerning the snobism and purist stance that pervades many jazz circles.

At Paradise Manor, the group's dream of self-realization is almost snuffed out when hotel owner Abe Mitgang (Joe Silver, perfectly cast), immediately objects to their loud "biff, bang, bam" playing, and requires the band to play quiet, schmaltzy music. They ultimately succeed in winning over the resort audience to swinging Dixieland music Disillusionment comes when crooner Rick Valentine (played by actor-dj Jay Thomas) makes a comeback engagement and nastily insults the band's abilities when they can't play his Vegas-style arrangements, forcing Mitgang to fire them.

Aided by a very entertaining portrait of life at a Catskills resort, Wayne Rogers and Cleavon Little make a solid team. They're supported ably bby reallife jazz artist Warren Vache (who plays his own cornet here and doubled as film's musical director) portraying, natch, the most talented musician in the group; Jerry Matz as the clarinetist with an inflated view of his abilities; Andrew Duncan as the henpecked pianist; and Daniel Nalbah s the morose drummer/dentist.

"The Gig" stands as an effective peek at the wish-fulfillment fringes of show business, previously treated from a jazz vantagepoint in the 1976 Swedish pic "Sven Klang's Combo".

This movie is almost never seen today - the only reason I can enjoy it again and again is from a slightly worn out VHS copy I made when the film was shown on TV in 1991 here in England.

An ensemble cast are obviously enjoying themselves and this is reflected to the viewer. A razor sharp script helps things along, and once you've seen this you will want to watch it over and over again.

Wayne Rogers is the 'star' but everyone contributes to a great film, with a great jazz soundtrack to boot. There are emotional moments during the film, but never to the point of sickly sweet sentimentalism - these are guys on the trip of a lifetime, and they convey that excitement wonderfully.

Highly recommended if you can actually get to see it.

This film is so difficult to find (I watched a complete upload on YouTube) that it seems foolish to review. As a long time lover of jazz and having been around jazz musicians for most of my life at clubs in NYC like the Five Spot and even places like Trumpets in my hometown of Montclair, this movie rings true on so many levels. Is it a great film? No. It is clearly made on a shoestring and with only a couple of names --Wayne Rogers and Cleavon Little. But the supporting cats are good too, many good character faces from old TV shows. What I think is most insightful, is the writing and how it captures these characters, their love for jazz and their naivete about what it takes to be a pro.

The dialogue is smart and funny. The film drags in a few places when some of the smaller characters are given too much story time but it never slows down to the point of disinterest. The writer knew how to write musicians -- jazz musicians especially, because they are an interesting bunch. I have to say one thing about my man, Cleavon Little. Cleavon left us with some beautiful work and he left us too soon. His performance here deserves attention because he played his character with such a distinct point of view. He and Wayne Rogers carried the film. Another scene, which I felt revealed the quality of the writing was the scene when Wayne Rogers gets knocked out by the wannabe Sinatra guy. A lesser film would have had him fighting back and being all macho. But instead, true to his character, who was not a tough guy, he took it like he had to. That scene must have happened in real life because it could not be made up, it had such a ring of truth. Find this film, and watch it.