No false notes for ‘Keep On Keepin’ On’

It's rare that I get to preview a film before it opens in Spokane. But this week that rare occurrence indeed did happen. The documentary "Keep On Keepin' On" opens today at the Magic Lantern Theater. Following is a transcription of the review that I wrote for Spokane Public Radio:

I know next to nothing about jazz. Even though my IPod boasts the work of musicians such as Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Chet Baker, I would be lost in any discussion about their respective abilities, their styles or especially what influence each has had. As with most people, I suspect, I just listen to what I like.

So I approached the music documentary “Keep On Keepin’ On” with as open a mind as I could muster. The film, which opens today at the Magic Lantern, is an exploration of the life, the career and that elusive legacy known as influence, of the jazz trumpeter Clark Terry.

A native of St. Louis, Terry rose above a dirt-poor childhood that saw him so obsessed with the trumpet that he built one of his own, connecting a length of scrap tubing to a lead mouthpiece. The sound was so ear-splitting that friends and family collected money to buy the boy a real horn. Fast-forward a few years and, after learning the basics of his instrument, he began playing professionally. By the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Terry was working with such bandleaders as Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

And Terry wasn’t just a journeyman. Even Dizzy Gillespie called Terry “one of the greatest, if not the greatest, trumpet players ever.” But for all his musical abilities, Terry’s greatest contribution may have been as a teacher. And it is that contribution that first-time filmmaker Alan Hicks – a musician himself – concentrates on in “Keep On Keepin’ On.”

Hicks focuses on Terry – now in his 90s – as he battles with the ravages of diabetes: blindness, ongoing pain and the threat of amputation. Hicks pairs Terry’s story with another musician’s struggle: Justin Kauflin, a prodigy jazz pianist in his early 20s, blind since the age of 11. Despite this, through effort and study with a number of music teachers, Kauflin developed his skills to a point where – under Terry’s tutelage – he receives an invitation to a prestigious musical competition. Yet the life of any jazz musician is difficult, and this is the richness that Hicks provides us: a legendary trumpet player facing the end of his life, and a talented young pianist at the cusp of what he hopes will be a career – both approaching whatever comes next with the same mix of stage fright and enduring feel for what Terry himself calls a “plateau of positivity.”

Produced in part by Quincy Jones, who credits Terry for helping him jump-start his own career, “Keep On Keepin’ On” is a tribute documentary. You’ll find nothing critical here, nothing controversial – save maybe for a brief appearance by Bill Cosby, who along with other Terry fans such as Herbie Hancock and Arturo Sandoval, attests to Terry’s talents.

Yet the film’s sentiment never feels forced. As I say, I know next to nothing about jazz. But I know enough to say that, like the music that both Clark Terry and Justin Kauflin create, “Keep On Keepin’ On” stays unerringly on key.