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Chet Baker: Speedball
@ the 606 Club
20 November 2007
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About Chet Baker: Speedball
Speedball is a creative response to the iconography of jazz trumpeter/vocalist
Chet Baker, a legend of the 1950’s ‘cool school’
whose mystique was built upon a life as turbulent off-stage as it
was poetic on-stage. Speedball explores how we respond to a life
once lived, how we today as musicians, writers and artists can respond
to the life of an eminent jazz musician in all its complications.
Taking an ambiguous, fragmentary approach, Speedball pursues an
original and organic integration of text, music and performance,
where a medley of stories, songs, spoken lyrics and film clips -
apparently random, yet ordered in its inevitable chaos - are underscored
by original compositions. Like a speedball falling from the sky,
anything goes in this collaboration by director Nicholai La Barrie,
writer Mark O’Thomas and pianist/composer Andrea Vicari, as
they blend theatre, performance and music with the dexterity of
a late-night jam session.
Developing Chet Baker: Speedball
Chet Baker: Speedball is an exciting and original collaboration
between artists of different disciplines, using jazz not as a tool
but as an essential form in the process. The work evolved through
creative response: the artists were each given a collection of material,
including recordings, interviews, biography and photographs, and
asked to respond as they wished. The responses were broad, including
text and dialogue, new composition, photography and film, and helped
generate a first draft script. During the rehearsal process all
artists and performers contribute to the development of an organic,
seamless relationship between the music, text and performance. The
script is revised daily to respond to the musical and performative
improvisations and the original music and jazz standards are arranged
to incorporate the responses to text and performance.
Cast:
Nicholas La Barrie – director, Mark O’Thomas –
writer
Andrea Vicari – composer / piano, Andy Davies – trumpet
Glen Macnamara – vocals / dialogue
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