Imagine walking into an art house cinema where the projector runs without film - the stories unfolding purely through Michael Mantler's haunting trumpet and the alchemy of his stellar ensemble. That's the experience of Movies, the 1978 WATT release that finds the Austrian composer conducting a masterclass in imaginary soundtracks, recorded with New York's most visionary musicians at Grog Kill Studio.
This is jazz that thinks in widescreen, each composition a self-contained drama. When Carla Bley's Fender Rhodes ripples through "Movie One," you can practically see the opening credits roll over some unseen 70s neo-noir. Steve Swallow's bass walks through shadowy alleyways of harmony while Terry Adams of NRBQ splashes clavinet colors like neon signs reflected in rain puddles. The rhythm section alone tells a story - with Tony Williams (fresh from Miles Davis' electric revolution) and Nick Mason (Pink Floyd's architectural drummer) alternating chapters, their styles creating entirely different narrative textures.
Mantler's genius lies in the details: how his muted trumpet on "Movie Two" becomes the inner monologue of a character we'll never see, or the way "Movie Three" stretches its 13-minute runtime like an unbroken tracking shot through emotional landscapes. Recorded in the same Woodstock-area studio where Bley crafted her jazz-opera Escalator Over The Hill, these sessions buzz with the energy of musicians inventing a new vocabulary - one where Morricone's grandeur meets NYC downtown experimentation.
