Cleve Pozar: Live and on camera

Longtime DFSBP readers will recall my perpetual fascination with the life and work of percussionist Cleve Pozar. On that front, a pair of brief bulletins:

1) This weekend, Cleve will fill his car with equipment and drive from North Carolina (his current home) to Brooklyn for a performance at The Firehouse Space, taking place on Sunday, March 11. The concert will feature works from Cleve's stunning early-’70's solo LP, Cleve Solo Percussion, and it marks the first time in roughly three decades that Cleve has performed this material. Two good friends of mine, Russell Baker and Will Glass (a student of Cleve's), open as the Ball Governor. More info, via Time Out New York.

2) Go here to view a trailer for "I Did the Number," an in-progress film about Cleve that I've been working on since 2008, with help from my wife, Laal Shams. I want to extend a huge thank-you to Dan Scofield—a great musician, filmmaker, multimedia artist and friend—for his editing expertise.

P.S. For a primer on Cleve, here's a profile/interview I put together in 2008 for Perfect Sound Forever.

Sonny Simmons on film

Below is the trailer for Just a Guy Who Knows, a new documentary project codirected by my friend Dan Scofield. The film is an impressionistic portrait of Sonny Simmons, surely one of the greatest living saxophonists.

Dan is also an excellent horn player - you can hear him in the band Shot x Shot - and he's been taking some lessons from Mr. Simmons. After they spent a bit of time together, Dan proposed this documentary project, and then he and his collaborator Mike Ercolini shot a bunch of interview and performance footage of Simmons over two days. I'm absolutely blown away by what they were able to come up with in such a short time - it's poetic and abstract, but it captures its subject with intense clarity. The footage of Simmons playing (solo sax on a Brooklyn rooftop, with the Manhattan skyline in the background) is simply priceless, as are the various anecdotes he shares re: artistic and personal struggle. If you like what you see here, you can view the full film as it currently stands, in a 20-something-minute version, by inquiring here. Dan and Mike are currently drumming up funds to make this into a feature-length doc, something I personally would be thrilled to check out. Definitely consider donating if you have the means.