Fire Music
★★★★ Dir: Tom Surgal
SUBMARINE DELUXE. ST
A thrilling portrait of the free jazz revolt; Thurston Moore, Nels Cline produce.
At 87 minutes, Fire Music isn’t much longer than saxophonist John Coltrane’s full-hour marathon through My Favorite Things in Tokyo, 1966. But Tom Surgal’s virtuoso documentary on the radical, improvising music that shattered post-bop orthodoxy in the ’60s – branded ‘free jazz’ after saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s landmark 1961 album – is as propulsive and cathartic as the art itself. The prime movers – Coleman, pianist Cecil Taylor, saxophonist Albert Ayler – mark turning points via archival interviews and performances (Taylor whipping from ballad filigree to full-blown fury; Sun Ra’s Arkestra in an auto-destruct frenzy like The Who at Monterey.) Collaborators and eyewitnesses (composer Carla Bley, the late drummer Rashied Ali) reflect on the struggle in the seeking. Surgal also takes a long, wide view, bringing in the ritual and activism of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, European improvisers and New York’s loft scene in the 1970s. Free jazz, pianist Burton Greene proclaims, was “like a short fuse with a long explosion.” See and feel the burn.