Lester Bowie

A music documentary about jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, with Chan Parker, Bill Miles, Dizzy Gillespie, Walter Bishop Jr, Sheila Jordan, George Wein, Bruce Ricker, Earl Coleman, Doris Parker, Roy Haynes, Tommy Potter, Lester Bowie, Jimmy Slyde, Santi Debriano, Henry Threadfill Sextet, Olu Dara, Charles Austin Trio, Paul McIsaac, Jacqui Casto, Steve Ben, Israel, Leroy Williams, Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins.

Twenty years ago five talented musicians decided to start a musical revolution in their native Poland and established a cult band. However, as time went by, their creative paths turned in different directions.

The musicians of the ‚Art Ensemble of Chicago’ have been performing their portrayal of jazz from past and present since 1967, not unlike a journey backwards in time aroused by an ancestral call to the myths of Africa. But what happens before their concerts? NULL SONNE NO POINT is the magnificent chronicle of the preparation for a concert and invites us into the very heart of the music, following the musicians backstage, at their rehearsals and moments of privacy and concentration, seeking the fluctuating emotions before the music begins.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late 1960s.

Montreux Jazz Festival, 1983

1984 performance by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Cecil Taylor

"Lester Bowie : trumpet - Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman : reeds - Malachi Favors : bass - Famoudou Don Moye : percussion + Fontella Bowie : vocals "Festival de Chateauvallon 1970"

Céline is a free-spirited woman is married to a dull, middle manager Philippe. Her husband's co-worker pegged her as a household ornament because of the union. She befriends a woman who shows her how to juggle the couple's living expenses to get what she wants. As she asserts her independence and gradually frees herself from her husband's claustrophobic world, she turns to painting and writing about the inequity between genders.

Two housewives discuss philosophical themes (actually an updated dialogue between Plato and Socrates) while doing the house work. The husband of one of them rehearses his part in a theatrical play, reading a 20th century philosophical text about totalitarianism.

An elderly couple and a younger man and woman follow up failed seduction attempts with conversation about love and the meaning of life.

A musical documentary accompaniment to the 1994 benefit compilation album concerning AIDS in the African-American community.