After
completing his 1985 film THE RETURN OF RUBÉN BLADES for Britain's
Channel 4 Television, Philadelphia-based filmmaker Robert Mugge began
searching for another music-related project he could undertake in 1986.
In seeming answer to that question, Mugge's good friend Francis Davis, a
prominent jazz critic also based in Philadelphia, informed him that he
had just done a long interview with jazz saxophone great Sonny Rollins,
and mentioned how warm and welcoming both Rollins and his wife and
manager Lucille Rollins had been.
Davis
went on to reveal that the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra had
commissioned Rollins to write an orchestral piece, and that, together,
he and the orchestra would soon be premiering it in Tokyo, Japan.
Rollins had composed long form pieces before, including his Civil
Rights-related Freedom Suite in 1958 and his musical score for the 1966
British film ALFIE, but this would be his first work incorporating a
symphony orchestra, which is why he brought in his friend Heikki
Sarmanto, a composer from Finland, to provide arrangements and conduct
the premiere performances.
For
Mugge, this seemed an incredible opportunity to make the sort of film
he had long wished someone had made when John Coltrane premiered "A Love
Supreme" or Duke Ellington premiered "Black, Brown and Beige" - two
ambitious works of the past which had pushed the boundaries of jazz
composition and performance. So, with Davis's help, Mugge, too, reached
out to Sonny and Lucille Rollins and found them surprisingly amenable to
a collaboration.
The
concerto was scheduled for two premiere performances at Tokyo
Koseinenkin Hall on Sunday, May 18, 1986, and Mugge was anxious to
secure permission to film one of those two performances. He soon learned
from Lucille Rollins that both the orchestra and the concert hall were
owned by Yomiuri Shimbun, the world's largest newspaper, as were the
Japanese television network that would broadcast the first of the two
performances and the Japanese radio station that would broadcast the
second. Fortunately, this vertical integration of both cultural and
corporate participants meant that Mugge was able to win full cooperation
from everyone involved.
The
plan they worked out was that, while the television crew covered the
first performance, Mugge and his crew would prepare their own approaches
for shooting the second one. And since the radio crew intended a live
broadcast of the second performance, Mugge's sound man could take a live
audio feed from their recording and mixing truck while Mugge and his
cameramen were shooting. Everything was falling into place.
Funding,
however, took a bit longer. But it, too, came together well enough for
Mugge and three of his longtime collaborators - cameramen Larry McConkey
and Erich Roland and sound man Bill Barth - to fly to Japan in time for
the big event. Britain's Channel 4 Television agreed to cover more than
a third of the film's costs, and a small U.S. theatrical distributor
contributed almost as much. That still left some project costs unfunded.
But Mugge decided to move ahead with what he had and to worry about the
rest once the Japanese footage was safely in the can.
Because
Mugge could only afford two cameramen for shooting an entire orchestra
performance, he knew they also would need to capture assorted scenes for
use in establishing a different visual theme for each movement. Such
scenes would include audience members arriving at the concert hall,
Japanese television and radio technicians recording the first
performance, a wide array of Japanese citizens racing around the streets
of Tokyo, religious parades and rituals, the dazzling Vegas-like signs
of the Ginza district at night, and more. He also knew that, prior to
the concert, he would want to shoot individual interviews with Rollins
and Sarmanto, as well as their personal rehearsals for the coming
concerts. In the end, everything went exactly as intended.
Back
in the states, as Mugge began editing his footage, he decided that
future shooting should build upon the idea of islands. With songs like
"St. Thomas" and "Don't Stop the Carnival," Rollins had long celebrated
the fact that his family had come to America from the Caribbean. Also,
in his Tokyo interview, Rollins proposed that perhaps the reason the
Japanese people loved him so much was because Japan, too, is an island;
and he went so far as to point out that New York City, where he had been
born and always since maintained a residence, is also an island.
Finally, factoring in Rollins's wellknown commitment to solitary
practice on his instrument (including more than a year and a half of
round-the-clock playing on New York's Williamsburg Bridge), coupled with
his commitment to a demanding physical and spiritual regimen, it was
difficult not to see the so-called "saxophone colossus" as a kind of
island himself.
Although
the orchestral footage had turned out wonderfully, Mugge also wanted to
film Rollins performing with a more traditional jazz ensemble. Lucille
Rollins pointed out that Sonny was set to do a summer concert on a small
ship sailing around Manhattan, and that sounded like the perfect way to
establish the notion of New York being an island as well.
Unfortunately, when Mugge checked with the promoters, he learned that
the concert would take place at night, and there would be no place for
his crew to plug in sufficient lighting.
Mugge
then returned to Lucille Rollins, asking where else Sonny would be
performing that summer, and she mentioned Opus 40, a sculpted rock
quarry in upstate New York. Mugge therefore contacted Tad Richards, the
longtime manager of Opus 40 and a stepson of the late sculptor Harvey
Fite, who proved to be far more welcoming. With this new location in
mind, Mugge then traded the "island theme" he had been imagining for a
"colossus theme" which would be beautifully illustrated by Fite's
monument-like rock structures.
For the August 24
concert, Mugge was able to afford four 16mm cameras, one of which would
be attached to Larry McConkey's Steadicam, plus a 24-track recording
truck. As for Rollins, he and his topnotch ensemble (Bob Cranshaw on
bass, Clifton Anderson on saxophone, Mark Soskin on piano, and Marvin
"Smitty" Smith on drums) started off strong with a fierce new Rollins
composition called "G-Man." The quality continued through a diverse set
of additional songs, but came to an abrupt halt when, in the midst of
some solo improvising, Rollins suddenly jumped from the sculpted rock
stage to another level six feet below. As his feet hit the new rock
surface, he fell onto his back, and simply lay there for a moment with
his eyes closed. Then, just as suddenly, Rollins shifted his saxophone
to his lips again and, without leaving his position on the ground, began
to play the opening to the song "Autumn Nocturne." Eventually, his very
relieved musicians on the level above him started playing along, and
concerned audience members returned to their seats on blankets and lawn
chairs.
Rollins
later stood up and played a couple more songs from that lower level
before ending the show so his wife Lucille could drive him to a nearby
hospital for testing. As is now well known, it turned out that he had
broken his heel but had not wanted to disappoint the audience by halting
the show prematurely. Several days after that, in a park in New York
City, Mugge interviewed jazz critics Ira Gitler, Gary Giddins, and
Francis Davis about Rollins's career. Critic Stanley Crouch had also
agreed to participate but failed to show.
Afterwards,
Mugge interviewed Sonny and Lucille Rollins on the same park bench,
discussing everything from Sonny's development as an artist to Lucille's
roll as his wife, manager, and record producer. On this occasion, Sonny
explained his Opus 40 jump from the stage as simply an attempt to
approach the audience and play for them more directly. However, Lucille
later told Mugge what Sonny had revealed to her, which is that a recent
lacquering of his saxophone had caused it to make unexpected sounds that
day, leading him to have almost a kind of nervous breakdown during his
solo improvisations, which he finally decided to end by taking the
ill-fated jump over the side of the stage. Of course, to fans of Sonny's
career, his unfortunate breaking of his heel simply underlined his
legendary commitment to his art.
Lucille
Rollins passed away in 2004, after suffering a stroke in 2003. That
robbed Sonny of his greatest supporter, but not of his determination to
continue developing his art. Unfortunately, a health issue forced him to
retire from recording and public performance after a final concert in
2012, and he is now enjoying a quiet retirement at his home in
Woodstock, New York. But Rollins's decades of extraordinary record and
CD releases, as well as this 1986 film, give eternal testament to his
greatness.
In
addition, Sonny Rollins has received countless honorary doctorates,
been elected to the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame (1973), received a
Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement (2004), received America's
National Medal of Arts (2010), been elected to the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences (2010), and received a Kennedy Center Honors Award (on
his 81st birthday, September 7, 2011). Just recently, it was announced
that the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the the
New York Public Library, has acquired Rollins's personal archive
containing collections of his papers and recordings. As Rollins pointed
out in a related statement, he was born on 137th Street, just two blocks
from the Schomburg Center.
Finally,
an effort is under way to have New York's Williamsburg Bridge renamed
for the world-famous jazz musician who once spent both day and night
rehearsing on it. On July 7,
Robert Mugge's 101-minute portrait titled SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS (after
Rollins's classic 1956 album of that name) will be newly released on
Blu-ray, DVD, and digital formats. Mugge himself supervised the film's
4K remastering and created a new bonus feature titled LEAPS AND BOUNDS:
Robert Mugge on the Making of SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS for inclusion with the
new Blu-ray and DVD. Additional bonus features are audio-only
performances of the Rollins compositions "G-Man" and "Don't Stop the
Carnival," as recorded for the film.
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