JazzTown

This upbeat documentary looks at the modern jazz scene in Denver, giving a delicious sense of how the freeform art drives musicians committed to serendipitous expression.

You don’t have to be a fan of the musical genre to appreciate “JazzTown,” though it certainly helps.

This upbeat documentary from director Ben Makinen, shot over the course of a dozen years, looks at the modern jazz scene in Denver. It’s a place you probably don’t think of when summoning the epicenters of what’s been called the most American art form. But the film smartly introduces us to a few dozen jazz musicians, from old-timers who played with legends to youngsters carrying the torch.

My dad grew up on the big band stuff of the 1930s and ‘40s, and in college and before marriage would go see Bird, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and other greats play live. He had an impressive record collection before dubbing it all onto tape and selling it off bit, by bit. He was more sentimental about the sound than the medium that carried it.

His love of jazz didn’t rub off on me, though I absorbed a fair bit listening to his recordings and stories. I tend to like the more structured stuff, a definitive melody with an opening for improvisation. When it gets too loose and untethered, I tend to think of the derisive description of “floater music” in Alan Parker’s “The Committments.”

That sort of thing is right up the alley of Mitch Chmara, an older guitarist and one of many Denver jazz artists profiled in the film. His music goes the way of wherever his fingers and mood take him in the moment. His idea of the perfect jazz is music that has “no past, present or future.”

It just lives in the now of perpetual serendipity.

Billy Wallace is a pianist who played with Max Roach and other jazz icons, and waxes with advice for youngsters who want to make a career in jazz: don’t. Many of the other artists talk bluntly about the economic reality of honing your craft for decades so you can play gigs for $50 a pop. You’d better love the music for its own sank.

“Only rich people can afford to play jazz” for a living, one quips.

We even hear from Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, himself a jazz player, who manages to not sound like a politician in his obviously genuine love for the music.

Gene Bass, a drummer, insists that the emotions in jazz come from the beat. (Of course a percussionist would say that.) Saxophonist Freddy Rodriguez grew up in the Depression with the sound and has followed it all his life. Art Lande is an experimental type who seems like he can play just about any instrument.

Vocalist Dianne Reeves talks expressively about the cross-pollination of jazz, how one artist will take a person’s song and reinvent it, like Barbra Streisand recording a Gladys Knight song and vice-versa.

There’s one fellow whose name I didn’t catch who basically just works his day job and then stays in his house up all night making weird, dreamy, beautiful jazz music. He plays chords on his guitar so aching with emotion you swear you can hear words.

Of course, the film treats us to plenty of live performances around Denver, from tiny hidey-hole clubs to big concerts in the park. I’ll say for my money that the work of vocalist Ayo Awosika was what most blew me away, sort of old-school bluesy jazz torch songs and the like.

That’s the thing about jazz. It’s not so much one thing as a collection of many things with a shared sense of creativity and individuality. “JazzTown” is a portrait of at least one city where the heartbeat is still strong.

“JazzTown” is now available for rental on most streaming platforms.