George Garzone Live

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George Garzone is a giant of the contemporary saxophone, having performed with Jazz luminaries like Joe Lovano, Jack DeJohnette, Kenny Barron, & Ingrid Jensen, and having recorded over a dozen albums as a leader since the 1990s. In short, he’s considered one of the true living masters of this instrument. He’ll be performing a very special set music at the VIFF Centre, in tandem with a screening of Fire Music, documenting the birth and growing pain of Free Jazz in the 1960s & 1970s. This music is near and dear to George’s heart and to celebrate it, he’s enlisted one of the Pacific Northwest’s most explosive Jazz groups to perform with him, the Jerry Steinhilber Trio.

George Garzone – Tenor Saxophone
Josh Cook – Tenor Saxophone
King Dahl – Bass
Jerry Steinhilber – Drums

About Fire Music (Tom Surgal, 2021, USA, 84 min)

The most reviled and misunderstood evolution in the (repeatedly reviled and misunderstood) history of jazz, Free Jazz took bebop as a key to unlock deeper mysteries of musical harmonics, a transcendent art pioneered by John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. You may think you don’t like improvisational jazz… but this is the film to open your ears to a spiritual quest analogous to abstract expressionism in painting, or beat poetry in literature.

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Heaven on earth… Crammed with exhilarating sounds, moving reminiscences and stimulating arguments that [free jazz] is not just music, but vital music… Incredibly well-curated archival footage and contemporary interviews that allow the viewer to briefly commune with some beautiful souls, including [Ornette] Coleman, Sam Rivers, John Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Don Cherry, Carla Bley.

Glenn Kenny, New York Times

Should be on any serious music lover’s must-see list. Fire Music provides a concise, thoughtful account of the musical form which first blossomed in the late 1950s, likening it in historical terms to such similar artistic movements as the Abstract Expressionists in painting and the Beats in literature. The documentary does an excellent job of making the music come alive with its gripping performance footage and incisive interviews with many key players.

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

Fire Music sets a new benchmark. The film clearly lays out how the original wave of free jazz evolved from what came before and how, for a brief yet indelible period, yielded a wealth of music that’s still unparalleled in its gritty intensity and deep spiritual resonance.

Hank Shteamer, Rolling Stone

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