Blacc takes viewers on trip through U.S. heritage
Film traces roots of American sounds
ONSCREEN What: America’s Musical Journey Where: Imax Victoria in the Royal B.C. Museum, 675 Belleville St. When: Friday through April 12 Tickets: $5.40-$11.95 Rating: G (all audiences)
Aloe Blacc is the kind of musician whose sound — and success — is not limited to one genre.
Blacc has written, sung, and performed his way into the hearts of audiences worldwide with an adventurous spirit and wide-eyed musical optimism, traits that made the Grammynominated artist the perfect subject of a new documentary, America’s Musical Journey.
The 40-minute film by Oscarnominated director Greg MacGillivray, which opens Friday at Imax Victoria, takes viewers across the United States in pursuit of the country’s musical heartbeat.
Along with Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who does the voiceover, Blacc, a California native who was born Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III, functions as part-tour guide and part-performer as he travels to six cities.
Blacc joins 100 strangers in Chicago for a flash mob set to his massive hit, Wake Me Up, and collaborates in a Miami studio with Gloria and Emilio Estefan. He also joins The Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader John Batiste in a musical parade along Beale Street in New Orleans.
The stops show Blacc’s true breadth as an artist. The film, in many ways, is the perfect showcase for his blend of R&B, soul, and jazz, as he tackles everything from country music to gospel during a stop in Nashville.
When he looks back at the experience, and takes stock of certain cities and their relationship with various genres — jazz in New Orleans, hip hop in New York City, blues in Chicago — Blacc said he discovered one constant.
“In each city, there was a risk taker, or a group of risk takers, where freedom of expression allowed them to break rules or disregard the concept of rules in music,” Blacc told the Times Colonist from Mexico City, where he was promoting the film.
Blacc spent two days in Victoria this week as part of the same promotional tour, starting with guest appearances at previews of America’s Musical Journey at Imax Victoria on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“You never know what to expect at these events, but Aloe was everything I had hoped for and more,” said Imax Victoria theatre director Paul Wild.
“He is the consummate professional. He’s thoughtful, he’s warm, he’s bright. It was incredible.”
A flash mob of 30 local dancers — performing to Wake Me Up — added some flair to the screenings and provided a common thread explored in the film, of cultural and musical unity.
Blacc gave an exclusive winto-get-in concert at The Duke Saloon last night, at which he performed a half-hour set for lucky contest winners.
In addition to Wake Me Up and I Need a Dollar, Blacc performed My Story, a new song he wrote about his experiences making the film.
The son of Panamanian parents, he understands the immigrant experience profoundly, and acknowledges in the song the road paved by musical pioneers who enabled him to make a living playing music.
One such artist, jazz great Louis Armstrong, figures prominently in America’s Musical Journey. Blacc visits a statue of Armstrong in New Orleans, where the singer-trumpeter was born, and strolls through Louis Armstrong Park. He also educates children on the steps of the Louis Armstrong Home Museum in Queens, New York, where Armstrong lived later in life, and sings a passionate version of Armstrong’s signature song, What a Wonderful World, during a performance on the National Mall, in front of the Washington Monument, in Washington, D.C.
Armstrong’s pioneering spirit is something Blacc feels passionately about. He hopes to carry the baton forward now that his success (Wake Me Up has amassed more than 1.4 billion views on YouTube) has given him a pedestal on which to do so.
“Someone like Louis Armstrong stopped paying attention to what was on the written score and started playing solos,” Blacc said of Armstrong’s impact on modern jazz.
“Not that he was the first to do it, but he was definitely known for it, and influenced a lot of other artists throughout time because of what he did.”
Jazz was less prominent for Blacc during the early days of his career. He came to prominence as a rapper, yet another genre explored in America’s Music Journey.
“Kids in the park didn’t have instruments, but they had electricity, so they’d bring their turntables out and plug them into the lamp post,” he said.
“They’d play records and start mixing records together in ways that eventually created hip hop. The exploration of that idea was what drew me to this project.”