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Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 1,019
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Noah Rosen and Alan Silva
I hope it is the right place to start this thread.
Aniway, here I go.
I just start to make a cinematographic portrait of pianist Noah Rosen with two friends who will co-direct and co-produce the up-comming film (if ever it succeed to go all the way) with me.
As you guess, it's a no budget film where everybody is contributing for free.
The idea came two months ago, when Noah went to Brussels to see his beloved Andrew Hill gives a concert with his band (Hill was one of his mentor and teacher beside Bill Dixon and Milford Graves). The day who follow the concert, he asks me if I could find a piano somewhere that he could practice for a couple of hours.
I bring him to a piano shop where we rent for two hours a "rehearsal room".
It's at this occasion that I hear him play live for the first time.
Well, a solo concert for myself alone.
After a moment, I start to regret that I didn't have a camera to record what I see and hear (even if the recorded sound could not have been very good) and told him so.
It was at this very moment that we decided than I will do a film about him.
We thought it could be fun and professionnaly interesting for both of us.
It could help him to boost his career and me to raise the fund I need in the purpose to direct another documentary on another jazz musician living in USA and who had agreed to the project.
If I have never direct a documentary before (but I have work on some as script writer or consultant), I've directed three short fiction films (respectively 9, 12 and 18 minutes long) during the nineties.
But it's seven years now that I shoot the last one.
So, I need badly to refresh a bit my credential as a film director if I want to get a producer interesting to my project and prove to him than I can direct also non-fiction films.
But before we could concretely start the project, I had to find a gig in Bussels for Noah.
What I succeed to do after two months of work.
So, last Sunday (June, 20th), Noah has given a concert in duo with Alan Silva at a place called the "PP Café".
Noah has never previously play with Alan even if they know each other a bit.
That didn't stop the concert to be a marvellous moment of free music who delighted the public who went to listen to the musicians.
But let start by the beginning.
I wanted to catch Noah live but also to film him in a studio on a great piano with the best sound possible.
Luckily, I've a friend who own a studio and who is a very competent sound engineer (he has recorded some live sessions publish on Leo or Emanem - look for Lol Coxhill & Veryan Weston's "Worms Organizing Archdukes", Evan Parker "Waterloo 1985" among others - He has also recorded and mastering in his studio a big part of Michael Moore "Jewel and Binoculars, The Music of Bob Dylan".
Michel (his first name) offers us two hours of free recording and the time to put on the lighting equipement that we rent to get the quality pictures that we needed.
Noah was very happy when he discovers that he was going to play on a Steinway Grand Concert, what he had never done before.
Alan came also to the studio with his wife Catherine (they marry during the last Vision Fest). He didn't know at the beginning if he wanted to be part of this adventure.
But after he discovers that he knows Michel (who has just make the mastering of his comming record) and listen to Noah playing a bit, he just jumps in, plug his bass, ready to play.
We use four cameras there, one who cover from start to end the entire session to get the continuity, and three others moving along to catch the musicians closer.
Just before they start to play the first piece together, Alan begins to speak with Noah from behind his bass. They first compare Andrew Hill with Cecil Taylor (Silva, has you know very well, has play wit both) and, then, Alan start to tell us what his experience with Taylor was (he has been his bass player continuously during eight years).
Then, when playing quietly in the same time, He begins to speak about the the evolution of the bass through the jazz history and his favourite bass players (Blanton comes first).
We catch also some "tranches de vie" when both men were in the control room and listen to the tape they just recorded. Both was very happy with what they heard.
So much than it was Silva, so reluctant at the beginning to be tape, who asks to Noah to do one more improvisation together. Amazing.
Then, we went to the club to do the sound check and go to eat after (Silva wanted for the meal some typical food from Belgium. Well, he got it).
Then we went back to the club where we use the spot of the café to light the tiny place where the musicians have to stand.
Our beloved sound engineer was also taping the concert, so it was perfect for us.
The place was quite crowded but, alas, also noisy as usual.
The first set was great even if the piano wasn't (by far) a Steinway.
Nothing, aniway, to be compare with the second set.
This two musicians was really born to play with each other!
The first long improvisation they play at the beginning of this set was absolutely stunning.
And what has follow was up to the same level.
We use three camera and get, I think, the material that we where looking for.
After this day of shooting we got something like one third of the material we need to make a film of 52 minutes long.
But, I have still to do in interview with Noah (and do it in the best sonic condition).
What I am working on, now, it's to get Noah to do a record in Belgium and shoot the entire recording session.
Noah has many idea for his next records. One could be easier to deal with (as record company seems to love the idea of a "concept" album actualy).
Noah would like to do a "remake" of Andrew Hill's "Strange Serenade" (Soul Note, 1980) with Silva on bass (he was the bassist on the original record) and Nasheet Waits (son of Freddy Waits, drummer on the original record too) on drums.
Hopefully, it will be great if I can make this to work for the next autumn.
Our wish, is to be able to complete the film by November and be ready to make serious editing at the beginning of the next year.
But what we want and what will get can be, alas, two different things.
We'll see.
By the way, the concert Noah gave at the PP Café was only the SECOND that he plays this year.
And he has nothing booked before next January!
I really hope than Alan Silva can help.
Last edited by LeMo; June-23rd-2004 at 06:56 PM.
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