{"id":159,"date":"2009-02-14T19:09:11","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T00:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2009\/02\/al_green_and_sonny_rollins_now\/"},"modified":"2011-04-28T16:34:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T20:34:21","slug":"al_green_and_sonny_rollins_now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/02\/al_green_and_sonny_rollins_now.html","title":{"rendered":"Al Green and Sonny Rollins, now and then"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Green, age 62, won two Grammy awards last week \u00c2\u00a0— Best R&B Performance by a Duo for “Stay with Me (By the Sea)”<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for “You’ve Got The Love I Need” — and of course out-classed Justin Timberlake on the televised award program<\/a> singing his 1972 classic “Let’s Stay Together.”\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n<\/object>\n<\/div>\n
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Sonny Rollins<\/a>, 78, won Record of the Year\u00c2\u00a0in the VIllage Voice’s 3rd annual jazz\u00c2\u00a0critics’ poll<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0with Road Shows Vol. 1\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(which made my 2008 10-best list<\/a>) and resumes touring<\/a> in April with concerts in Arkansas, Miami and California.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\"Picture\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Both Green and Rollins are captured at the earlier career peaks by documentarian Robert Mugge<\/a> — who I spoke to recently — in his movies\u00c2\u00a0The Gospel According to Al Green<\/a><\/span> and Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus<\/a><\/span>, from 1984 and 1986 respectively, newly available on DVD by Acorn Media.\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n


\nMugge, an independent director and producer <\/a>who not long ago ended two years as filmmaker-in-residence at Mississippi Public Broadcasting<\/a>, specializes in American vernacular music, having creating fascinating films about Sun Ra<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0Robert Johnson’s<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and Reggae Sunsplash 1983<\/a>, among other topics. His films are\u00c2\u00a0deceptively casual — he spent 13 months just getting Green to face him, back in the day, and went to Japan to document Rollins’ little- known “Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra”– and\u00c2\u00a0engagingly journalistic.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Mugge typically weaves interviews and candid moments with musicians and their close associates together with performance footage that is always clearly shot, without distracting edits or voiceovers and selected to exemplify the real arts of the people in front of his camera. Both Al Green and Sonny Rollins reveal themselves dramatically in The Gospel According To . . .<\/span> and Saxophone Colossus<\/span>, which were originally funded in the ’80s by the BBC’s culturally focused Channel 4<\/a>. In the process Green and Rollins give Mugge and we viewers the greatest gift: the outpourings of their immediate, fully-committed inspirations.<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
Green, 36 at the time of Mugge’s filming, tells the story at meandering and flirtatious length of his conversion from explicitly sensual soul singing to righteous raising voice for the Lord. He shrugs and grins and charms, sitting and standing, stroking a guitar and directly addressing the filmmaker, who remains offscreen but occasional prompts with a question. Green also performs with the choir of his church. He’s spirited in both settings. His former drummer and co-producer Willie Mitchell<\/a> adds wistful comments about his one-time prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9’s decision to foresake secular entertainment. Green reunited with Mitchell for I Can’t Stop<\/a><\/span>, his 2003 comeback on Blue Note Records<\/a> that embraces the worldly without obviously discounting the sacred.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
“Al’s a nice guy but also a bit of a nut case,” Mugge said from his home office in Philadelphia. “It took me two trips to Memphis, one to New Orleans and one to New York to get him to do that interview, and he only agreed after negotiation and re<\/span>-negotiation. I had to sort of trick him to do ‘Let’s Stay Together’<\/a>,” a sterling moment when the singer explains the song’s origin and breaks into it from what seems like casual strumming.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“I tried to put together a 25th anniversary sequel to The Gospel<\/span>, ” Mugge continued, “and amazingly raised the money, got Morgan Freeman<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0to agree to act as host, and we were going to do it in his club in\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>Clarksdale<\/a>, but at the last minute Al told his booking agent he didn’t want to do it anymore, he was too busy this year to make a film. So I don’t know if it will ever happen, but it would be so much fun to check in with him now, as he’s finally rationalized doing both sacred and secular music with these Blue Note releases.” Lay It Down<\/span><\/a>, his second Blue Note album, is the source of both Green’s Grammy wins.\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

“Sonny is rather shy and reserved,” Mugge recalled, “and only did the movie because Lucille<\/a> [his late wife] pushed so hard for him to go along as a way to get people paying more attention to what
\nhe was doing in that period. He’s just the sweetest guy
\nin the world and so easy to work with — except for his reservations about doing
\nthings. I was in touch with Sonny recently about using a complete version of the
\nconcerto audio as a historical artifact.” Mugge had\u00c2\u00a0left two of the concerto’s movements out of the film.<\/p>\n

“Well, he mulled it over and finally told me there were too many
\nmistakes in that version, because it was the first time it had ever been
\nplayed, 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
\nunfortunately nobody recorded it. He and Lucille talked for years
\nabout doing it right, reviewing the score and mounting it again. But I wonder if
\nanybody today would be ready to pay what it would cost to record him with a symphony orchestra.” \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Though Rollins’ concerto was a unique event, the most gripping moments in Saxophone Colossus <\/span>come during\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>a concert of his regular band at an outdoor venue called Opus 40. Sonny blows his horn during an unaccompanied cadenza with all the vigor, humor and continuous variation his fans crave, concluding by leaping off the stage into a moat-like ditch sep. There’s a moment of stunned silence among the musicians — then the camera locates\u00c2\u00a0the Colossus lying on his back.\u00c2\u00a0In that position puts his horn back into his mouth and resumes playing.\u00c2\u00a0He’d broken his heel in his jump.\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

“I felt incredibly fortunate Sonny created such a tremendous work
\nfor us that day,” Mugge said, specifically referring to “G-Man<\/a>,” 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
\nthat. It was so interesting to me, too, what that said about his sense of
\nperfection.<\/p>\n

“I learned he’d recently had the sax laquered, and apparently that can change
\nthe tone of an instrument. When he was playing at Opus 40, his horn would sometimes just
\nsquawk a note — he told Lucille it was like playing a vowel and out comes a
\nconsonant. Being\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>a great artist, Sonny can’t play a wrong note, he builds on what comes. But he was getting
\nmore and more enraged by it, and finally jumped because he felt he was having a
\nbreakdown.<\/p>\n

“When I saw him do that I told the cameras to keep shooting but ran
\naround the structure to ask him if he was ok. When I got to where he was he started
\nplaying ‘Autumn Nocturne,’ lying there. I wanted to use the whole
\nsong, but they didn’t want me to because the other musicians were so
\ntraumatized . . . “<\/p>\n

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 — \u00c2\u00a0as well as Al Green in Memphis, Sun Ra navigating the spaceways, a host of blues people including\u00c2\u00a0Robert Jr. Lockwood, Roy Rogers, Rory Block and Honeyboy Edwards interpreting\u00c2\u00a0Robert Johnson’s music, portraits of Gil Scott Heron<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0Ruben Blades<\/a>, New Orleans’ Music in Exile<\/a> and several films that have not been issued in any form.<\/p>\n

Look at what Mugge’s done. Is there a better way to thank him?<\/p>\n

howardmandel.com<\/a>
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Al Green, age 62, won two Grammy awards last week \u00c2\u00a0— Best R&B Performance by a Duo for “Stay with Me (By the Sea)”\u00c2\u00a0and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for “You’ve Got The Love I Need” — and of course out-classed Justin Timberlake on the televised award program singing his 1972 classic “Let’s Stay Together.”\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[169,170,172,171,54],"class_list":{"0":"post-159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"tag-al-green","8":"tag-grammy-awards","9":"tag-music-documentaries","10":"tag-robert-mugge","11":"tag-sonny-rollins","12":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-2z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":537,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/09\/congrats-to-sonny-rollins.html","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":0},"title":"Congrats to Sonny Rollins","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Saxophonist supreme Sonny Rollins turns 81 today, and was announced as recipient of 2011 Kennedy Center honors. He really deserves it: he's been a beacon of robust, smart, honest American music for more than 60 years.\u00c2\u00a0Surfing for clips, I found this of \"Alfie's Theme\" from 1982, but there are many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":320,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/06\/_why_give_jazz_awards.html","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":1},"title":"Why of the Jazz Journalists Assn’s Jazz Awards","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"June 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Why give Jazz Awards? See my new column in City Arts re the event Monday 6\/14 at City Winery in NYC, produced by the Jazz Journalists Assoc.\u00c2\u00a0 (Full disclosure: I'm deeply involved -- as left, last year presenting Kurt Elling his statuette for Best Male Vocalist, photo by Enid Farber.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"HM-and-Kurt-Elling-jazz-awa.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/HM-and-Kurt-Elling-jazz-awa.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":339,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/09\/sonny_beacon_bootlegged_video.html","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":2},"title":"Sonny @ Beacon bootlegged video clip","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A bootlegged video excerpt of Sonny Rollins at the Beacon Theater, 9\/10\/2010 is available on youtube -- the sound doesn't do him justice, and I don't intend to encourage unauthorized video, but it is out there to give the world a brief idea of last night's concert.\u00a0On the other hand,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/09\/sonny_the_sax_king.html","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":3},"title":"Sonny the sax king","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"At age 80, Sonny Rollins is indisputably the greatest living jazz tenor saxophonist, proved last night throughout a 2-hour set at New York's sold-out Beacon Theater in which harmolodic sage Ornette Coleman sat in, backed by drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Christian McBride, on \"Tenor Madness.\"\u00a0\u00a0\"Sonnymoon For Two\". Rollins was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":341,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/09\/video_for_fans_of_sonny_rollin.html","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":4},"title":"Video for fans of Sonny Rollins & harmolodics","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Too good to not post: Ornette Coleman was surprise guest with Sonny Rollins at his fast-become-famous Beacon Theater 80th birthday party on September 10 (backstage there was birthday cake shaped like a saxophone, made of marzipan). Note SR's quote at about 10 minutes in of \"I'll Take Manhattan,\" which he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":118,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/08\/sonny_rollins_in_chicago.html","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":5},"title":"Sonny Rollins in Chicago","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sonny Rollins at 78 is still a saxophone collosus, as he demonstrated leading his touring sextet Thursday night to open the Chicago Jazz Festival. His bent posture, shock of white hair and strong features give him the air of an Old Testament prophet, and his stamina may not be all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Chicago Jazz festival\"","block_context":{"text":"Chicago Jazz festival","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/tag\/chicago-jazz-festival"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}