Captain Bacardi
Well-Known Member
I just got back from the documentary short called "Herb Alpert: Music For Your Eyes" that has been playing here in Austin at the SXSW festival. This documentary is actually part of a competition. They showed a variety of short documentaries - some were only 10 minutes long. "Music" lasted about 25 minutes, and showed some behind-the-scenes of Herb doing both painting and sculpture work. Unlike the other films, which used a lot of B&W footage or had some graininess to the film, this was shot on the Sony high definition camera, which was the same used for Herb's "Keep Your Eye On Me" video. Very bright, vibrant colors exploded onto the screen, with commentaries by Herb, Lani, as well as some art critics and the curators of a Tennessee art museum, where Herb's works were displayed.
Herb compared making art with his making of music - not really knowing where to start but after a couple of brush strokes he gets an idea where he's going with it. It's very similar to his musical process, where you take a chord, play a note on top of that, and take off from there. I'm not an art expert by any means, and some of the sculptures kind of lost me, but there was one that was intriguing. It was a smaller work, where it looked like three trumpeters all playing together. The paintings I liked a lot. They looked a lot different from the couple of books of his paintings.
Then there was the music. Most of it was new. I did recognize the beginning piece, which was a different version of "Ode To The Sun", which opened "The Very Best Of Herb Alpert" video that came out a few years ago. The rest of the songs were similar to his Second Wind album, except for one piece, which was a straight-ahead jazz tune, with Herb soloing on top on a muted trumpet. It sounds something like what Miles Davis did on his Aura album. I hope this music gets released someday. The credits didn't have any song titles, but did list the composers as Herb & Michel Colombier, Herb & Jeff Lorber, and Herb and Eddie del Barrio.
There were also a couple of humorous moments, such as Lani talking about how she would get up in the morning and go into the kitchen and there would be Herb with a blowtorch and some small figurine that he was sculpting, with another figure in the oven. Another scene showed another sculptor who was helping Herb by packing all of this clay onto one piece, with Herb taking a wire and trimming a lot of it off. Herb said he did it just to watch the expression of the other sculptor's face, which got a few laughs from the audience.
Speaking of the audience at the theatre, I doubt that most of these kids knew much about Herb's music. There was a brief scene where a clip of the TJB playing "The Lonely Bull" from their 1st TV Special, and I heard someone behind me say "I've heard that song before". As I was standing in line - in a light rain - to get in, I noticed that most were probably college kids with the goofy piercings, colored hair and trying to speak intellectual-eze about absolutely nothing.
Your basic artsy crowd, I guess.
I don't know if this feature will ever make it onto video or DVD anytime soon, but I would definitely recommend seeing it if it plays in your area. I don't think you'd be disappointed.
Capt. Bacardi
...windbag online...
Herb compared making art with his making of music - not really knowing where to start but after a couple of brush strokes he gets an idea where he's going with it. It's very similar to his musical process, where you take a chord, play a note on top of that, and take off from there. I'm not an art expert by any means, and some of the sculptures kind of lost me, but there was one that was intriguing. It was a smaller work, where it looked like three trumpeters all playing together. The paintings I liked a lot. They looked a lot different from the couple of books of his paintings.
Then there was the music. Most of it was new. I did recognize the beginning piece, which was a different version of "Ode To The Sun", which opened "The Very Best Of Herb Alpert" video that came out a few years ago. The rest of the songs were similar to his Second Wind album, except for one piece, which was a straight-ahead jazz tune, with Herb soloing on top on a muted trumpet. It sounds something like what Miles Davis did on his Aura album. I hope this music gets released someday. The credits didn't have any song titles, but did list the composers as Herb & Michel Colombier, Herb & Jeff Lorber, and Herb and Eddie del Barrio.
There were also a couple of humorous moments, such as Lani talking about how she would get up in the morning and go into the kitchen and there would be Herb with a blowtorch and some small figurine that he was sculpting, with another figure in the oven. Another scene showed another sculptor who was helping Herb by packing all of this clay onto one piece, with Herb taking a wire and trimming a lot of it off. Herb said he did it just to watch the expression of the other sculptor's face, which got a few laughs from the audience.
Speaking of the audience at the theatre, I doubt that most of these kids knew much about Herb's music. There was a brief scene where a clip of the TJB playing "The Lonely Bull" from their 1st TV Special, and I heard someone behind me say "I've heard that song before". As I was standing in line - in a light rain - to get in, I noticed that most were probably college kids with the goofy piercings, colored hair and trying to speak intellectual-eze about absolutely nothing.
Your basic artsy crowd, I guess. I don't know if this feature will ever make it onto video or DVD anytime soon, but I would definitely recommend seeing it if it plays in your area. I don't think you'd be disappointed.
Capt. Bacardi
...windbag online...
