I wholeheartedly and almost without reservations recommend two new independent films now showing at Landmarks Kendall Square Cinema: Jimi: AllIs By My Side and Take Me To The River. Everyone who appreciates the roots of American music, and anyone who digs the deeply African diaspora roots of almost all American musicology should consider seeing both films. #1, They are both exceedingly entertaining. # 2, Both demonstrate masterful performances, creative cinematography and very smart editing. # 3 Each in its own way acknowledges the critically important political context of their respective subject matter. Jimi written and directed by John Ridley (!2 Years A Slave!) concentrates his bio-op on one single year of Hendrixs chaotic and sudden rise from obscurity to mega-stardom May 67 to May 68, days before his break out performance at the Monterey Pop Festival when he lit his guitar on fire and played the national anthem with his teeth. Hendrix is brilliantly performed by Andre Benjamin (of OutKast fame) who clearly gets all the nuances of this totally spaced out acid freak mega talent in all his convoluted dimensions. (Full disclosure; I actually had a brief encounter of the Fourth Kind with Jimi when he performed at a poorly attended concert in a little known venue in DC. I took 15 high Black and white high school students from an Upward Bound summer project where I worked. Here was this seeming cross over Black Blippy rock star that both races of teenagers might relate to. Mind you, it was 1968 only months after Dr King had been assassinated! I was given free tickets by the owner manager, a close friend. Never mind! We watched mesmerized at very close proximity to the Jimi Hendrix Experience Trio. There was no stage barrier in this carved out former movie house to separate us from his Trio. We were aghast and utterly flabbergasted and confounded as we witnessed Hendrix dry humping the amplifiers, assimilating masturbation with is guitar, all the while as he played these astounding musical riffs and lyrics. Nothing could have prepared us for this. Jimi concluded his masterful solo performance by smashing his guitar to pieces against the amplifiers and floor. I mistook his shenanigans as a total mental breakdown. Dig this: I grabbed Hendrixs broken guitar and reach to his shoulder to hand it back to him, and exclaimed to him WTF was that?? Why did you do that? You are Great. That was the most brilliant R&B Rock music I had ever heard performed. He walked away saying That was all part of the act man. All part of the act. He was all that!!! There could not have been more than 50 folks in the crowd including our group of 16! But all this was occurring against a backdrop of mind-bending radicalizing political struggle to which Jimi Hendrix was seemingly disconnected. Weird. All of this irony was truthfully portrayed in this wonderful bio-op. Save for one scene in which Hendrix supposedly smashed his white girlfriend in a bar with a telephone. Almost all Hendrix biographers deny this ever happened. No one ever witnessed Jimi use violence against any women. The victim forcefully denied that happened, and gave proof there was never a suicide attempt. WTF!!! Mr. Ridley, WTF???? Take Me To The River is a fascinating and lump-in-the-throat documentary of the vintage Memphis musical scene at STAX records and presents almost all the living legends, and brings in major contemporary hip-hop stars, most notably Snoop Dog. There is a whole final section with Black and a few white high school musicians at a newly constructed STAX Records museum/Charter School learning their licks with several of the great ones. Priceless. This movie gives us all the political context in which this thoroughly racial mixed house of R&B musicians performed. A poignant anomaly with powerful lessons for this NOT post-racial America. This documentary pays many tributes to each of the great ones, many of whom were not the R&B stars, but their lyricist and back-up musicians that in fact created those amazing sounds. GO see both. The music is splendid in both. Ridley could not use any of Jimis sounds. The estate would not allow him. (?) The critics gave both films mixed reviews. Ignored them. They know not of what they write. (My humble opinion)
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 03:55:31 +0000
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