Shirley Clarke’s Ornette: Made In America DVD 

http://www.synergeticpress.com/video.html 

By Ken Shimamoto 

When I met Mike Watt at SXSW a few years back and told him I was from Fort Worth, he immediately exclaimed “Caravan of Dreams!” I had to tell the ex-Minuteman that Caravan was gone. When I still worked downtown, I’d watched them gut out that magnificent room, with its perfect sightlines and immaculate sound system. To this day, I won’t say the name of (let alone eat in) that restaurant which usurped its location. 

I’ll admit that I liked the idea of Caravan a lot more than I actually attended the illustrious Sundance Square venue. I missed out on its harmolodic heyday -- when Ornette Coleman, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and James “Blood” Ulmer were regular visitors – by being in the Air Force and outta touch with the music scene. I went there for the first time in the fall of 1992. I’d just gotten out of the service and Sonny Rollins was playing, so I paid my 20something bucks and sat at a table by myself (my future ex-wife didn’t dig jazz). Perusing the menu and listening to the conversations of people around me, I quickly realized that 1) there were folks who could afford Caravan’s ticket, food and drink prices on a weekly basis no matter who was playing, and 2) I was not one of them.  

Backed by Bass bucks and run by a resolutely New Age crew of eccentrics, by the time I made the scene, the Caravan had evolved into a more conventional music venue. I only saw a handful of shows there, including Who bassist John Entwistle (whose bus, complete with English greyhounds, I’d seen parked in front of the Worthington Hotel that afternoon; he played at a volume more appropriate to Texas Stadium and stayed after the show to sign memorabilia for seemingly every member of the audience) and Taj Mahal (kinda NPR for my taste, but opener Corey Harris provided stirring reminders that country blues usedta be dance music). I wouldn’t pay 60 bucks to see artists I dug like Los Lobos and Buddy Guy there because, well, I don’t pay 60 bucks to see anybody, and besides, Buddy played for free in Sundance Square that year. But set-and-setting wise, it really was an ideal space. 

Caravan was more than just a music venue; they also had a record label, which released crucial sides by Ornette (particularly his double LP In All Languages) and Shannon Jackson (the live-at-Caravan When Colors Play), as well as the video of Shirley Clarke’s documentary Ornette: Made in America, which profiles the titanic jazz innovator-composer and chronicles the events surrounding his Fort Worth performances in September 1983 (at Caravan and with the Fort Worth Symphony). I bought a VHS copy at Caravan when I was working downtown and subsequently gifted it to a friend, but when I recently saw an ad online for a DVD version, I snapped it up. 

Clarke, who died in 1997, was a dancer-turned-filmmaker whose CV also included the film version of The Connection, Jack Gelber’s play about junkie jazz musos; The Cool World, an unblinking look at Harlem street gangs; and Portrait of Jason, an extended interview with a gay black man. Released in 1985, Ornette: Made In America, her final film, wasn’t Coleman’s first appearance on celluloid; he’d had a bit part in the 1966 French film Chappaqua, for which he provided an unused soundtrack, and his mid-‘60s trio with bassist David Izenzon and Fort Worth drummer Charles Moffett was filmed on tour in Europe. 

The documentary starts out with a re-enactment of the Luke Short-“Long Haired Jim” Courtwright gunfight on Main St. (what could be more Fort Worthian than that?) and then-mayor Bob Bolen presenting Ornette with the key to the city on the courthouse steps. Cut to the performance of Ornette’s symphony Skies of America with the John Giordano-led Fort Worth Symphony, which serves as the film’s centerpiece. There’s also a performance of Ornette’s Prime Design/Time Design by a string quartet and his son/drummer Denardo under the geodesic dome in Caravan’s rooftop garden (where my teenage daughter used to sneak to hear Tiffany Shea play in later years), plus footage of Ornette playing with Denardo and bassist Charlie Haden in the ‘60s, Nigerian tribal musicians and the Master Musicians of Joujouka in the ‘70s. The saxophonist revisits the house where he was born in Como and reminisces with the home folks, and talks music with composer George Russell and the late jazz scribe Robert Palmer.  Ornette’s raps are always kinda convoluted, and there’s a disconcerting bit toward the end of the film where he talks about wanting to be castrated. 

The video transfers on Synergetic Press’ DVD-R appear to be from video (although they have 16 and 35mm reels available for rental). Still, it’s good to be able to view this again and be reminded of the idiosyncratic glory that was Caravan. It’s also sobering to realize that back during the Reagan years, it was actually possible to hear one of the originators of free jazz performing in his hometown. These days, as much as the popularity of jazz has increased here in the Fort, music that follows the trail Ornette blazed remains anathema – a sad irony.