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Nov 18  |
Sunday November 18 at 7:00 pm Los Angeles Filmforum presents Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant and more Jazz Films In association with the Getty Research Institute’s Côte à Côte: Art and Jazz in France and California, at which Clora Bryant will be appearing. We’re delighted to host this portrait of the musician Clora Bryant, an essential player in the jazz scene of Los Angeles. We will have other short jazz films of California or French musicians as well, titles to be announced. Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant by Zeinabu irene Davis (2004, 55 min., DVcam) In person: Clora Bryant The odds were stacked against Clora Bryant: she was a woman; she was black; and she was playing a “man’s instrument” - the trumpet. Yet she paved her way onto the Los Angeles jazz scene during the 1940s and 50s, and became known as a skilled trumpet player, performing with Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. A multi-faceted cinematic portrait, the film pays homage to the career of a courageous woman. – Berenice Reynaud Zeinabu Irene Davis’s new film Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant portrays the life and work of “trumpetiste” Clora Bryant, a largely unrecognized force in the Los Angeles and Central Avenue jazz scenes. “Zeinabu irene Davis’s films explore and celebrate the black female body and female experiences not treated by mainstream cinema.” – Literature Film Quarterly Clora Bryant One of the last living musicians of the Be-Bop jazz era is a 75-year old woman who mentors the next generation of jazz players. Clora Bryant toured with Billie Holiday, and she is the only woman trumpet player who ever recorded with Dizzy Gillespie and played with Charlie Parker. Though she was honored last May at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Bryant has never become well known to the general public. Despite a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in 1996 that left her unable to play her trumpet, Bryant continues to exert her influence on the world of jazz. She still sings and lectures on jazz history at several Los Angeles-area colleges. She also mentors several young female jazz musicians, encouraging, inspiring and teaching them. Bryant says the younger generation needs to learn from older players, as she did from greats like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong. "When I grew up there were legends everywhere, and now the legends don't make themselves available to young people anymore…these days people just get in their limos and away they go, and it hurts my heart." Bryant's love affair with the trumpet started when she was a high school junior in 1941 in Denison, Texas. After her brother was drafted into the army, Clora Bryant picked up the trumpet he left behind and started playing day and night. Since then, her 59-year career has been full of firsts. In the 1940s, most women in jazz either sang or played piano and avoided the male-dominated horn section. Bryant was the first woman to play with Charlie Parker. She recorded with Dizzy Gillespie and played with other greats like Louis Armstrong, Carl Perkins, Dexter Gordon and others. Later, in 1989, Bryant was the first woman to travel to the Soviet Union to perform jazz, on the invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev. Part of Bryant's ability to break through gender barriers came from the strength she got from her father, whom she calls her "knight in shining armor." She clearly remembers, as a little girl, her father telling her that she could do anything she set her mind to, and that he was behind her all the way. Bryant does the same for other young ladies searching for their own place in the mostly male world of jazz. Bryant says it's essential for experienced musicians to foster the creative growth of young artists, technique and history and offering encouragement. She says she feels sorry for young musicians these days, because they don't have the access to jazz legends like she once had with her mentor Dizzy Gillespie, or the one-on-one friendship she had with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong. She says its still especially important to mentor women players, teaching them not just technical skills but also how to survive as a woman in a field that has vastly improved since she started out but is still dominated by men. She says women jazz players need to excel technically and musically in order to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts. And as her father used to tell her, Bryant still teaches her female protégées, "If you want to be respected, you have to act like a lady. And to me that is what it's all about, being a lady." -- ACF NEWS Source Zeinabu irene Davis is an independent filmmaker and full Professor of Communication at University of California, San Diego. Her work is passionately concerned with the depiction of women of African descent. Ms. Davis is equally comfortable in film and video and has worked in narrative, documentary and experimental. A selection of her award winning works include a drama about a young slave girl for both children and adults, "Mother of the River"; a love story set in Afro-Ohio, "A Powerful Thang" and an experimental narrative exploring the psycho-spiritual journey of a woman with "Cycles". Her latest work, a dramatic feature film entitled "Compensation" features two inter-related love stories that offer a view of Black Deaf culture. It has received the Gordon Parks Prize for Directing from the Independent Feature Project and the Reel Black Award from the Toronto-based Black Film Video Network. Ms. Davis is currently at work on an expressionistic video essay, "Co-Motion" which focuses on women of color and breastfeeding. Ms. Davis has received numerous grants and fellowships from such sources as the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. (07/02)An interview with Clora Bryant as part of the Central Avenue Sounds oral history project. More on the Getty event |