Noteworthy New Videos of Jazz Eminences

Although recorded jazz and sound movies are roughly contemporaneous in origin (both were essentially established during the 1920s), the preservation of jazz on celluloid has always lagged. The reasons for this are familiar: racism and the low repute in which jazz, black or white, was held in the country of its origin.

Given these difficulties, it is remarkable how many admirable jazz films have surfaced in recent years, on public TV and/or home videos. Through the combination of live footage, stills, early file film, voice-overs and interviews, the lives of such artists as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Bix Beiderbecke have been effectively documented.

Reviewed below is the most brilliant recent addition to the list, along with others of value dealing with past and present eminences.

“Song of the Spirit--the Story of Lester Young.” Bruce Fredericksen, Box 444, Willernie, Minn. 55090; 93 minutes; $79.95. Lester (Prez) Young, whom Billie Holiday called the president of the tenor saxophonists, was doubly disenfranchised--a performer in a minority-appeal music whose laconic sound and style were at first misunderstood and rejected even by sophisticated jazzmen.

He was a maverick on other levels too. His speech patterns were so odd that much of what he said left listeners scratching their heads . . . yet some of his hip jargon became common parlance decades later. He withdrew early into a world of his own, disliking all that was hard or harsh, wearing slippers rather than shoes and eventually resorting to various forms of chemical abuse.

Prez is on hand in this unique film, seen playing with the Count Basie band and heard uttering a few obscenity-larded comments in voice-overs. But essentially the story is told in interviews with his daughter Beverly and with John Hammond, Jo Jones, Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge, Count Basie, John Lewis, Norman Granz and others whose paths crossed with his own.

Scenes in New Orleans and Minneapolis, where he was raised, help set the ambiance. Most moving is the actual transcript of the court-martial that led to Young’s humiliating detention and dishonorable discharge from the Army. That he was ever inducted seems incredible in the light of what one learns here about his personal problems.

“Song of the Spirit” tells, with insight and compassion, the story of a heavy price paid for nonconformism in music and in American society. 5 stars.

“A Brother With Perfect Timing.” Abdullah Ibrahim, Rhapsody Films; 90 minutes; $39.95. Ibrahim, who was born Dollar Brand in Capetown, came to the United States in 1965 and acquired his new name on converting to Islam three years later. Ibrahim, a pianist and composer whose influences clearly include his idol Duke Ellington, talks at length about religion, race, apartheid, bagpipes, circular breathing and a strange range of other topics.

In the musical interludes, he leads his seven-piece band, Ekaya, at Sweet Basil’s in New York, or plays solo, or sings and slaps his thighs for rhythm, or rehearses a choir in Africa.

Though his talk becomes obscure at times and is inhibited by a stammer, his comments on the blending of cultures are often provocative and at times convincing. “The samba didn’t come from Brazil,” he insists. “It came from Africa.” He amplifies this with stories about the Angola-to-Brazil slave trade.

The music peaks near the end, with warmly affecting solos by Ricky Ford and Carlos Ward on saxophones, and by Ibrahim.

Though judicious editing would have helped, it is clear that Ibrahim, who recently toured in the United States, is a charismatic storyteller and a musician capable of touching all idiomatic bases. 4 stars.

“Jazz Hoofer: Baby Laurence.” Rhapsody Films; 37 minutes; $29.95. Baby Laurence literally took the art of jazz tap dancing many steps beyond the early initiatives of Bill (Bojangles) Robinson and John Bubbles, both of whom are seen here briefly in old clips. Basically, though, this is an in-person session with Laurence performing for an audience in Baltimore a few years before his death in 1974.

Backed by a small jazz group, he taps out every note of Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” and gives impressions of some of his predecessors. 3 1/2 stars.

“Born to Swing.” Count Basie, et al, Rhapsody Films; 50 minutes; $39.95. The imprimatur of quality here is the name of John Jeremy, the British director who made “The Long Night of Lady Day.” Under his guidance, we are taken on a retrospective tour of the Basie band, with British trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton as narrator.

Basie alumni, idolaters and critics are interviewed; the full band and a small alumni group provide the music.

Much of this seems to have been filmed long ago, because the on-camera talkers include Gene Krupa, who died in 1973. 4 stars.

“Chick Corea Electric Workshop.” DCI Music Video; 53 minutes; $39.95. There’s less history and more how-to in this highly personal lesson-cum-recital. At the piano, Corea discusses and illustrates the work of such influences as John Coltrane and Bud Powell before switching to his keyboard-heaven spaceship to construct, with bassist John Patitucci and drummer Tom Brechtlein, an original composition and arrangement.