Al Green and Sonny Rollins, now and then

"Sonny is rather shy and reserved," Mugge recalled, "and only did the movie because Lucille [his late wife] pushed so hard for him to go along as a way to get people paying more attention to what he was doing in that period. He's just the sweetest guy in the world and so easy to work with -- except for his reservations about doing things. I was in touch with Sonny recently about using a complete version of the concerto audio as a historical artifact." Mugge had left two of the concerto's movements out of the film.

"Well, he mulled it over and finally told me there were too many mistakes in that version, because it was the first time it had ever been played, and he'd rather we not put it out. He told me that years later the concerto was performed it in Italy, and he liked that version better, but unfortunately nobody recorded it. He and Lucille talked for years about doing it right, reviewing the score and mounting it again. But I wonder if anybody today would be ready to pay what it would cost to record him with a symphony orchestra."  

"I felt incredibly fortunate Sonny created such a tremendous work for us that day," Mugge said, specifically referring to "G-Man," a 15-minute tour-de-force, "and it was quite bizarre that he jumped and broke his heel. It gave an additional level to the film, to capture something like that. It was so interesting to me, too, what that said about his sense of perfection.

"I learned he'd recently had the sax laquered, and apparently that can change the tone of an instrument. When he was playing at Opus 40, his horn would sometimes just squawk a note -- he told Lucille it was like playing a vowel and out comes a consonant. Being a great artist, Sonny can't play a wrong note, he builds on what comes. But he was getting more and more enraged by it, and finally jumped because he felt he was having a breakdown.

"When I saw him do that I told the cameras to keep shooting but ran around the structure to ask him if he was ok. When I got to where he was he started playing 'Autumn Nocturne,' lying there. I wanted to use the whole song, but they didn't want me to because the other musicians were so traumatized . . . "

Rollins' leap seems to flow from musical logic, not a breakdown, though you've got to hear and see it to judge for yourself. Which is one reason motion pictures were invented. Thanks to Robert Mugge, we have that scene --  as well as Al Green in Memphis, Sun Ra navigating the spaceways, a host of blues people including Robert Jr. Lockwood, Roy Rogers, Rory Block and Honeyboy Edwards interpreting Robert Johnson's music, portraits of Gil Scott Heron, Ruben Blades, New Orleans' Music in Exile and several films that have not been issued in any form.

Look at what Mugge's done. Is there a better way to thank him?