Synopsis
Shot in 1987 at the Montréal International Jazz Festival, this documentary film presents musical performances and conversations between three jazz pianists with remarkably different styles - Soviet Leonid Chizhik, Black Montrealer Oliver Jones, and French-Canadian Jean Beaudet. It introduces viewers to the diversity of interpretation within today’s jazz world, explores the roots of modern jazz and the specific formative influences on the musicians profiled, and reaches for a definition of twentieth-century jazz.
A word from Tënk
Accompanied by the warm voice of Michel Garneau, writer and great jazz enthusiast, Crossroads - Three Jazz Pianists presents two conceptions of this music: a more classical and European one, embodied by Leonid Chizhik, and a more modern and North American one, put forward by Quebecers Oliver Jones and Jean Beaudet. Their spirited performances—Jones solo on the piano and Beaudet with his group—are skillfully captured by Serge Giguère’s camera. Jones asserts that music comes from the heart for musicians here, whereas Europeans have a more cerebral approach.
According to Garneau, the “conspiracy” associated with jazz, which could also serve as a definition of this musical style, is “that of the creative power that celebrates the richness of being, the fullness of the moment, the evident joy of the body that plays, and enjoys.” Jean Beaudet, for his part, aptly reminds us that initially, “[jazz] was a derogatory term to describe the music played by an inferior race.”
At the end of the documentary, Chizhik's jazzy interpretation of Gilles Vigneault's Gens du pays reflects the pianist's admiration for local music and serves as a form of reconciliation between the "learned" European culture and the popular culture. Crossroads - Three Jazz Pianists reminds us that jazz is not the music of an elite, but indeed that of the people.
Jean-Philippe Desrochers
Critic
