New Mexico Jazz Festival: Film Screening

Maxine Gordon and Steve Feld screen and discuss the 1986 film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, starring Dexter Gordon and Francois Cluzet, Round Midnight.

Maxine Gordon and Steve Feld will screen and discuss Round Midnight, the 1986 film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, with Dexter Gordon in the role of tenor saxophonist Dale Turner (for which he received an Oscar nomination for as a leading actor in 1987). Dexter's co-star, Francois Cluzet, is now a top French film actor (Intouchables and Tell No One). All of the music in the film was recorded live on the set and Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Pierre Michelot, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Tony Williams, and John McLaughlin perform and appear in the film. Round Midnight remains central to films about jazz, and Maxine and Steve, friends of 20 years, will discuss the film's making, and how it played into and played against European myths about US jazz and US myths about Europe's embrace of jazz.  Maxine Gordon, the wife of Dexter Gordon and author of his forthcoming biography, Dexter Calling, has been present in the story of Round Midnight since its production. She is an archivist, jazz researcher, and occasional tour manager for jazz ensembles. Steve Feld, a life-long Dexter Gordon fan, is an author, filmmaker, recordist, and performer in Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra, a project comprising 5 films, 12 CDs, and a book. FREE!