Studying at a music conservatoire can stifle an aspiring young jazz musician, and to inhabit for a moment the world of the Whiplash baddie Professor Terence Fletcher, there are times when one might wish it stifled more of them. But no one, surely, would condone the catalogue of abuse inflicted on the freshman drum student attending the fictitious New York music school in director Damien Chazelle’s 2014 movie. Indeed, the basic premise of the film is fantastical, for any contemporary educational establishment aware of such gross and bullying behavior would have paid off the faculty member and compensated the student faster than one could say non-disclosure agreement. Even ballet schools, the last practitioners of the sort teaching-by-tyranny depicted in Whiplash, had changed tack by the early 1990s, here in Europe at least.
Anyway, engage suspension of disbelief. Chazelle made the movie and now pianist Benoit Sourisse and drummer Andre Charlier have turned Justin Hurwitz’s soundtrack into the platform for a concert, with their Multiquarium Big Band following with precision every baton stroke and drum beat on the screen behind them. Multiquarium debuted on record in 2016 with the excellent Multiquarium Big Band (Gemini). Check “L’Afrobeat Improbable” on the YouTube below and hang on in there until 2:26 when the titular groove kicks in. Their follow-up, Remembering Jaco (Naïve, 2020), should appeal to everyone with fond memories of the bassist who turned Weather Report into a posturing stadium act.
The 18-piece Multiquarium Big Band was devastatingly good and their in-your-face, perfectly synchronized performance of Hurwitz's score raised by several notches the intensity of what was already a compelling movie.
Hurwitz…proved himself at home with the music in his soundtrack for Chazelle’s La La Land (2016). He also has what might be called a jazz sense of humor, having written and produced a dozen episodes of the razor-sharp TV series Curb Your Enthusiasm. His work on Whiplash has authenticity. But how is the audience meant to approach the Multiquarium presentation? As a celebration of the music? As an opportunity for fans of the movie to enjoy it from a new perspective? As a geekish exercise in synchronization of sound and vision?
The questions became irrelevant once the Barbican show began. The 18-piece Multiquarium Big Band was devastatingly good and their in-your-face, perfectly synchronized performance of Hurwitz’s score raised by several notches the intensity of what was already a compelling movie. It is to the stage designer’s credit that big, loud and lit though Multiquarium were throughout the film’s 106-minutes running time, one soon ceased to be aware of their presence. Attention remained focused on the screen behind them.
Full story available via AllAboutJazz here.