Wattstax

[Guest]

from what i took away from this film, it seems, as if the crowd is well behaved the whole show, staying in the bleachers, but then Rufus comes out and does "the breakdown", and it is just too funky. Rufus makes the crowd go wild. i have seen hundreds of hours of jazz documentation, but when all the kids storm the field and all start dancing to the breakdown, i swear it seems like the most happy, fun, singular momement in all of black history. i should also note, that i knew 'breakdown' was in the dvd before i saw it, and i was looking fwd. particularly to that segement- however please dont let that bias my previous analysis.

ALSO, i was dissapointed in that there was no jazz. J.Jackson mentioned his opening speech, "you will hear r n b, u will hear blues, u will hear jazz", etc. but unless it just wasnt shown, there wasnt really any jazz. they even interviewed this one old black guy, and he said: "i'm too old to like any of that jazz...i like da blues". anyways they should of at least got art farmer, and maybe dexter gordon to play a set together; maybe with laurence marable on drums and charlie haden on bass. and harold land n ernie watts. then they could have had Stax music represented, + the **LOCAL*** black music- the jazz of central ave.

Lastly I could not shake off, for the entire course of the dvd, the notion of what it would have been like, if i personally could have been there. Do you think the people around me would be giving off bad vibes to me, if i was the only white woman seated in their section? Or do you think they would be cool with me going to the show to hear the music? Beacuse I've had all those Stax Rufus 45s since the early 80s- I would have definetly gone to the concert....