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As a special event of the 38th New York Film Festival, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center, will present Oscar Micheaux's silent classic BODY AND SOUL starring Paul Robeson. The presentation will feature the world premiere of a newly commissioned score by Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, performed live by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.
BODY AND SOUL (US, 1925, B/W, 86 minutes) is considered pioneering African-American filmmaker Micheaux's masterpiece. On its release, The Amsterdam News spoke of the film as "a story guaranteed to hold one breathless to the very end, beautifully photographed, extraordinarily original, and acted by a cast of some of our greatest artists." In the powerful central role, Robeson, in his screen debut, plays a hard-drinking thief and womanizer who poses as a pastor in a small Southern town and preys upon a young member of his congregation.
Print courtesy of the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
This event opens the tenth anniversary 2000-01 season of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The new score incorporates elements of swing, the blues, gospel themes, vocals, and shifting instrumentation, and is a milestone for talented musician, composer, educator, and longtime Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra member Wycliffe Gordon.
Gordon was born in 1967 in Waynesboro, Georgia, and began playing the trombone at age 12. While in college, he attended a master class led by Wynton Marsalis, who later invited him to join his septet. He has performed with renowned musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Al Grey, Slide Hampton, Joe Henderson, Lionel Hampton, and Shirley Horn, et al., and has been a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra since 1992. He has won several awards, including Best Trombonist in the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards 2000, and Trombone Talent Deserving Wider Recognition in the 2000 Down Beat Critics Poll.
This event is a part of an ongoing partnership between Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Film Society, which have coproduced the popular Jazz at Lincoln Center series Jazz on Film, at the Film Society's Walter Reade Theater, since 1993. On September 29, 2000, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra will perform the European premiere of BODY AND SOUL in Braunschweig, Germany.
Jazz at Lincoln Center is the world's largest not-for-profit arts organization committed to the appreciation and understanding of jazz through performance, education, and preservation. During its 10th anniversary 2000-01 season, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce more than 450 events worldwide. Currently, Jazz at Lincoln Center is building its new home -- Frederick P. Rose Hall -- the first-ever education, performance, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, which is scheduled to open in 2003.
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