“CENTRAL AVENUE Was One of the Swingingest Streets in the World, Man
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“CENTRAL AVENUE was one of the swingingest streets in the world, man. I’ve been to all those places that are supposed to be swinging, like KANSAS CITY, CHICAGO, NEW YORK... But they didn’t swing like CENTRAL AVENUE.” - Flectcher Smith WHY IT MATTERS: The Lost Avenue will explore the history of Central Avenue and focus on the jazz and culture that was born and celebrated in the area. Unlike other jazz hubs like New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City and Harlem, Central Avenue is rarely referenced in the history of the music. The Avenue served as an important West Coast community for African-American jazz musicians – not only to play their music but also to live in harmony in a segregated Los Angeles. “Los Angeles was wonderful. The air was scented with orange blossoms and the beautiful homes lay low crouching on the earth as though they loved its scents and flowers. Nowhere in the United States is the Negro so well and beautifully housed, nor the average of efficiency and intelligence in the colored population so high. Here is an aggressive, hopeful group – with some wealth, large industrial opportunity and a buoyant spirit” (The Crisis, July 1913). - W.E.B. BuBoius NOTE FROM DIRECTOR, GREGORY CARUSO: I love jazz and the history of the music. In developing a recent feature, Flock of Four, I became infatuated with the rich history of the area and my research ultimately led me to Steve Isoardi, an expert on The Avenue and the musicians who brought it to life. Today, there are only a handful of musicians left who performed on the The Avenue. Most notably - Norman Bowden, Big Jay McNeely, Bobby Bradford (already interviewed / pictured below). Through an oral history project for UCLA, Steve Isoardi interviewed many more musicians. NARRATIVE & STRUCTURE: The documentary will follow a Ken Burns inspired style and pacing, while combining that very aesthetic with live-action, filmed scenes of memorable Central stories - JELLY ROLL MORTON pre-1920s, ART TATUM playing late-night shows with Pabst Blue Ribbon on the piano, BIG JAY McNeely playing on the streets, walking in-and-out of each club while staying on beat. STLYE: Live-action scenes will be filmed on a sound stage with a com- pletely black background. The abstract, dark space will be used in a theater / stage-like fashion. For instance, while Big Jay McNeely (cur- rently at 89 years old) is telling a story about himself as a 20-year old on the Avenue, an actor playing McNeely will appear in the black space, as if the audience is given a window into the past – this will continue throughout the film with several of the interviewees… ENDING / FULL-CIRCLE / JAZZ TODAY: In the 1950s, desegregation laws, which allowed black people to live in other parts of Los Angeles, started to break apart the Avenue. Jazz clubs moved to Western Ave., Rodondo Beach and Hollywood. Today, a new crop of muscians has risen from the very area where jazz proliferated almost a cenutry ago. As jazz evolved in America from Early Jazz, to Swing, to Bepop, to Avante-Garde and so on... Jazz is still very much alive, growing and evolving through the likes of KENDRICK LAMAR, THUNDERCAT, KAMASI WASHINGTON, TERRACE MARTIN, MILES MOSLEY, RYAN PORTER, TONY AUSTIN, PATRICIA QUINN, CAMERON GRAVES, RONALD BRUNER JR. and more. Copyright, 2017 The Patwood Company (d.b.a Bristol Pictures) 1656 9th Street, Santa Monica, CA TEL: 310.741.2662.