“He doesn’t come from my community,” replies avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, hidden deep behind dark glasses, when asked by the interviewer about Stockhausen. The same response follows for questions about Bach and John Cage. In a style characteristic of 1968, the African-American musician, filmed in an old French palace with oversized chimneys, dismisses European traditions in
favour of “across the track” culture – the lived experiences of African-Americans.In this instalment in a five-part series for French television on modern music, Taylor discusses the philosophy of music and performance, rendering his points with an opaque, two-handed intensity on the piano that pushes bebop into abstract expressionism, and the film crew into a visceral pool of sound. Gérard Patris and Juliette Bort (as editor) respond with abrupt, rapid cuts, mirroring the music’s intensity with compelling precision. Like Taylor, who moves fluidly between music and poetry, the filmmakers shift from textless opening credits (where names are spoken aloud) to on-screen text and textual interjections, embracing the avant-garde in what becomes a duet between cinema and the Taylor quartet.

Ehsan Khoshbakht

In July of 1969, Algiers hosted the first Pan-African Cultural Festival, a groundbreaking event for post- independent Algeria as well as for the continent of Africa. Run by the Ministry of Information and Culture along with the Organisation of African Unity, the festival celebrated African cultures while also providing a political platform for anti-colonial struggles. Nicknamed the “Mecca of Revolutionaries”, Algiers became a magnet for movements of independence and African-American jazz artists, including Nina Simone and Archie Shepp, who performed with Algerian musicians. Three months later, marked by the experience, Shepp returned to Algeria to shoot a film in the desert with Tuareg musicians. Directed by Ghaouti Bendeddouche, Archie Shepp chez les Tuaregs captures
the energy of the festival and the saxophonist’s transformative journey as he seeks to reconnect with his African roots. The work, often mistakenly identified as Théo Robichet’s short, Archie Shepp in Alger (1971), was presumed lost for a long period of time. A phantom work, Archie Shepp chez les Tuaregs still stands, nevertheless, as a unique testimony to a fleeting yet fundamental moment, where music and cinema bring about a return to one’s roots, at once intimate and collective.

Nabil Djedouani