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Music Movies
Music Movies
2012-2013 PROGRAM
If you love some music with your movies, mark your calendar for these upcoming screenings where the soundtrack is a character of its own. Films range from rare concert footage to forgotten musical features and tributes to iconic talents. Keep an eye out for special live music performances on our regular screening calendar.
Greetings From Tim Buckley
Seattle premiere!
May 24 - May 30
(Daniel Algrant, 2013, USA, Blu-ray, 99 min)
Let Your Light Shine: Experimental Animations by Jodie Mack
Director in attendance!
Jun 01
Jodie Mack's insightful, handmade films use collage to explore the relationship between graphic cinema and storytelling. Combining the formal techniques and structures of abstract/absolute animation with those of cinematic genres, her film work explores the tension between form and meaning. Mack received her MFA in film, video, and new media from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and currently teaches animation at Dartmouth College.
Ghosts of Piramida
Seattle premiere!
Jun 02
(Andreas Koefoed, 2012, Denmark, Blu-ray, 90 min)
In the most thoughtful and affecting music documentary of the year, Danish band Efterklang travels to an abandoned Russian town where, decades earlier, miners and their families managed to live outside the rules and reality of a Soviet authority. If you could call one place a natural host for a trio of musicians, then Piramida—a town of empty buildings waiting to be filled with music—might just be it. Searching for nothing more than artistic inspiration, the musicians discover a way to bring this town’s ghost story into the here and now with their newest album.
Music Craft: Esperanza Spalding
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Jun 07
Winner of Best New Artist Grammy 2011 (she beat Bieber!), Portland-raised musician Esperanza Spalding brings her young jazz act to Spain, in collaboration with flamenco specialist Nino Josele. Gifted with violin and bass chops, Spalding adds a powerful voice to a sensational stage presence. Part of Music Craft, our regular series featuring rare concert footage from music legends.
Old Farts and Jackasses
Live music by Jason Staczek and Garth Reeves!
Jun 20
Calling all feisty fogies and savvy whippersnappers: we're presenting a big screen rebuke to all things "new country." Sip a cool one in the lobby, then sit back and get schooled on the genius of the giants of country music past: Waylon and Willie, Johnny and June, Buck and Don, Conway and Loretta, Tammy and George and Mr. Merle Haggard.
Music Craft: Al Green
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Jul 11
In 1968, WNET NYC, began airing Soul!, a landmark televised music program. Just a few of the many artists who graced the airwaves during its 39-week run include Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Stokely Carmichael, the Delfonics, Earth, Wind & Fire, Louis Farrakhan, Nikki Giovanni (a frequent host), Patti LaBelle, Miriam Makeba, Curtis Mayfield, Toni Morrison, Tito Puente, Max Roach, Stevie Wonder. . .and a full hour with Al Green who was 26 when he recorded this concert in the Soul! studios. Part of Music Craft, our regular series featuring rare concert footage from music legends.
Music Craft: Miles Davis
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Aug 08
Join us for four rare filmed performances by Miles Davis spanning decades, from a 1959 NYC television recording to a 1991 Parisian gig (Miles died three months after filming). Part of Music Craft, our regular series featuring rare concert footage from music legends.
Lee Konitz
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
May 02
Lee Konitz's New Quartet puts on a 2012 show in Burghausen, Germany, featuring Florian Weber on piano, Jeff Denson on bass and percussionist Ziv Ravitz. Although familiar with bebop and avant-interventions, Konitz (a Cool Jazzer) is considered one of the few alto saxophonists to retain his own sound at a time when Charlie Parker schooled other players.
Hancock, Shorter, Holland, Blade
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Apr 04
(76 min)
This 2004 show from Salzau, Germany features a veritable "super band" of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, and Brian Blade, inviting cheer from jazz fellaheen. Dig the set list: "Sonrisa," "V," "Pathways," "Aung San Suu Kyi," "Prometheus Unbound" and "Cantaloupe Island." Part of our ongoing series Music Craft, featuring rare concert footage from music legends.
Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Mar 21
(58 min)
Music Craft continues at the Film Forum with some scrupulous "Harmolodics" from Free Jazz badass Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time gang. Performing in 1988 in Montreal, with guitar power-assists from Pat Metheny, Chris Rosenberg and Ken Wessel, Coleman rouses multi-melodies and polytones in a high-energy orbit of pieces such as "Latin Genetics" and "Bourgeois Boogie."
Movie Night
Dec 14 - May 24
DJs Jon Francois and Nik Gilmore return Movie Night to our screens as they remix quirky feature films with some of the finest vinyl records, live! Feast your eyes on odd cinematic gems, as the DJs replace almost the entire soundtrack (including music, sound effects and dialogue) of classic flicks. Special ticket pricing: $5 online or at the door!
What Did You Expect? The Archers of Loaf
Seattle Premiere!
Oct 05 - Oct 11, 2012
(Gorman Bechard, USA, 2012, Blu-ray, 88 min.)
Indie rock icons the Archers of Loaf reunited in 2011, playing two legendary concerts at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC on their reunion tour. Combining in-your-face concert footage and rare interviews with the band, director Gorman Bechard (Color Me Obsessed and the forthcoming Grant Hart documentary, Every Everything) captures the excitement and explosive energy of what its like to see this extraordinary band perform live.
Holiday High Notes
Dec 02, 2012
(Various directors and countries, 50 min)
Our annual Holiday High Notes concert at Northwest Film Forum is the perfect way to usher in the holiday season, with equal parts nostalgia and bright anticipation for the future. Join us as we welcome the renowned Northwest Boychoir, Apprentices to our cinema to sing in joyful accompaniment to a new collection of vintage holiday film footage. The choir's seasonal repertoire and angelic voices are the the perfect soundtrack to a cinematic wonderland of silent film Santas, animated elves and giddy children from days gone by.
Valtari Film Experiment
Dec 07 - Dec 09, 2012
(Various directors/countries, 2012, Blu-ray, 120 min)
Sigur Rós gave a dozen filmmakers the same modest budget and asked them to create whatever comes into their head when they listen to songs from the band's new album valtari. The project idea aimed to bypass the usual artistic approval process and allow people utmost creative freedom. Among the filmmakers are Ramin Bahrani, Alma Har'el and John Cameron Mitchell.
Music Craft: Jimmy Smith
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Dec 15, 2012
(1965, 55 min)
Years before being sampled by the Beastie Boys, Jimmy Smith's bebop-blues mastery of the Hammond B3 electric organ and Leslie speaker was caught in a tour documentary made for German TV in 1965. The look is black-and-white grainy, the sound is birthing acid fusion. With Billy Hart on drums and Quentin Warren on guitar.
Music Craft: Sarah Vaughan
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Jan 19
(1969, 61 min)
Up close and personal in this digital rebroadcast from German TV in 1969, the formidable Sarah Vaughan (who was a major influence on Amy Winehouse) delivers her levitating mix of jazz and pop. With Johnny Veith on piano, Gus Mancuso on bass and Eddy Pucci on drums, she and the trio glide in and out of material like "Fly Me To The Moon," "Polka Dots And Moonbeams," and "Didn't We?"
Music Craft: Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek
Sponsored by KPLU 88.5
Feb 16
(1974, 60 min)
Pianist prodigy Jarrett and saxophonist Garbarek, along with Jan Christensen on drums and Palle Danielsson on bass, are captured with a multiple camera set-up in the NRD TV studio in Hannover, Germany, 1974. This explosively subtle, tenderly masochistic performance of moods and grooves drops you in outer inner space.
Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
Sep 03, 2012
(Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler, 2011, USA, Blu-ray, 100 min)
Join us for a one-time screening of Everyday Sunshine, an outstanding documentary about Fishbone, musical pioneers who have been rocking on the margins of pop culture for the past 25 years. From the streets of South-Central Los Angeles and the competitive Hollywood music scene of the 1980s, the band rose to fame, only to fall apart on the verge of "making it." Laurence Fishburne narrates this look at a unique black punk rock band, a story of fiercely individual artists reclaiming their musical legacy while debunking myths of young black men from urban America. With an introduction and Q&A from the band, this promises to be a memorable screening experience.