{"id":10561,"date":"2015-02-02T17:15:51","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T22:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10561"},"modified":"2015-02-19T11:14:07","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T16:14:07","slug":"dvd-keep-on-keepin-on-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10561","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Keep on Keepin\u2019 On (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"KeepOnKeepinOn_s\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>:\u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Anchor Bay Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 January 13, 2015<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Documentary \/ Jazz<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Moving portrait of legendary jazz trumpet player Clark Terry as he mentors gifted, blind piano player Justin Kauflin.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 Q&A with Director Alex Hicks and HIFF co-moderator Alec Baldwin (33:55) \/ 4 Deleted and Extended Scenes (11:35) \/ Jazz Archive (5:38) \/ Additional Interviews (6:26) \/ Clark Terry on Performing (1:08) \/ Clark Terry on Teaching (1:59).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

After travelling to the U.S. to be mentored by renowned jazz trumpet player Clark Terry, Australian drummer Alan Hicks was soon offered a prime spot in the jazz icon’s band, touring across Europe for four years before Terry\u2019s next student, pianist Justin Kauflin, caught the drummer’s attention, largely because Terry and Kauflin were slowly losing their precious sight in tandem. Terry was still able to see murky images in one eye, but Kauflin was virtually blind, yet he demonstrated a passion and deep commitment to be the best in his field.<\/p>\n

When a proposed Australian TV featurette on Terry\u2019s amazing, decades-long mentoring program fell through, Hicks and cinematographer Adam Hart decided to go for broke and make a documentary on Terry and Kauflin themselves, balancing short spurts of filming in New York City and Terry\u2019s home in Arkansas with quick jobs to keep their documentary project going. Quincy Jones eventually joined the production and helped clear complex music rights, allowing the filmmakers to fully present Terry\u2019s talent with vivid audio and rare archival film & video clips.<\/p>\n

Filmed roughly when Terry was 90-92 years old, no matter how \u00a0fragile or ailing the jazz great may appear, he\u2019s fully devoted to his students, which in the early years included Jones and Miles Davis. Choosing to pass on knowledge to newcomers rather than taking his exceptional experience to the grave, Terry challenges, listens, suggests, and helps refine an artist\u2019s sound so it\u2019s both professional, and reveals the artist\u2019s inner voice rather than parrot someone else’s style.<\/p>\n

He’s the complete humanitarian – he’s never charged a fee – and although it\u2019s disheartening to see Terry in increasingly fragile states \u2013 his frequent hospital visits reveal deeper health issues, of which one is horribly cruel \u2013 he keeps singing, remains in regular contact with his students, and never denies them his time, ensuring they’re armed with the right tools and inspiration to fight for a chance at a career in the arts.<\/p>\n

Kauflin\u2019s own progress is shown through extracts of private rehearsals, public performances, and tender moments with his mother, but perhaps the sweetest comes on the night Jones visits Terry in Arkansas, and sees what’s perhaps an echo from his own past in Kauflin and Terry\u2019s gentle relationship. Jones says to Kauflin \u201cHe\u2019s a great man,\u201d but alongside respect and deep concern for Terry, there\u2019s also a few bouts of deliciously profane candor between the two longtime friends. (Says Jones to Terry: “You always were a late night motherfucker.”)<\/p>\n

Keep on<\/strong> tells Terry\u2019s story in straight terms without any manipulative editorial maneuvers or contrived scenes \u2013 much of it feels like fly-on-the-wall drama \u2013 and there\u2019s a clever device Hicks uses to repeatedly anchor Terry\u2019s life force to music: Hicks had Kauflin perform piano accompaniment as underscore, which often fades up on the soundtrack whenever Terry sings, functioning as a poignant comment on Terry’s total immersion in melody, rhythm, and harmony.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a beautifully crafted film \u00a0\u2013 Hicks admits to being a fan of D.A. Pennebaker, but prior to Keep on<\/strong>, he\u2019d never made a movie \u2013 and it\u2019s a rich, emotionally tough film to watch, in part because Terry also represents the quality of talent, integrity, and knowledge that vanishes each time a great musician passes away. (At the time of writing, Terry is very much alive at the wild age of 94.)<\/p>\n

Anchor Bay\u2019s DVD features a crisp transfer of the film, a lengthy Q&A with director Hicks at the Hamptons International Film Festival<\/a> co-moderated by Alec Baldwin, and a gallery of extended scenes, rare performance footage from The Tonight Show (where Terry performed in 1992), and additional interviews with Bill Cosby, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Dianne Reeves, and Arturo Sandoval.<\/p>\n

Hicks’ filming also occurred while Terry was completing his autobiography<\/a>, which was published in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>\u00a0— Soundtrack Album Review<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After travelling to the U.S. to be mentored by renowned jazz trumpet player Clark Terry, Australian drummer Alan Hicks was soon offered a prime spot in the jazz icon’s band, touring across Europe for four years before Terry\u2019s next student, pianist Justin Kauflin, caught the drummer’s attention…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3322,3321,3319,3320,3323,139],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2Kl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10561"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10783,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10561\/revisions\/10783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}