Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
by Mark Moormann
List Price:
Our Price: $18.23
You Save: $6.75 (27%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $13.99 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, John Coltrane, Ray CharlesDirector: Mark Moormann
Brand: Uni
Producer: Mark Moormann
Producer: James Kirk
Producer: Jonathan Dana
Producer: Juan Carlos Lopez
Producer: Lawrence Saichek
Producer: Mark L. Hunt
Producer: Scott L. Gordon
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-08-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Palm Pictures / Umvd
Product features:
- Palm Pictures is proud to announce the release to DVD of TOM DOWD AND THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC on August 24, 2004. Profiling the life and work of Tom Dowd, the legendary producer and recording engineer, the film was an Official Selection at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and SXSW Film Festival. Hailed by Premiere Magazine as a compelling portrait of a man who lived to capture
DVD Reviews of Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
DVD Review: Bringing Fame to an Obscure Industry Legend
Summary: 3 Stars
When Tom Dowd died in 2002, in his adopted state of Florida, he was neither rich nor famous. For the record, he died of emphysema, a week after his 77th birthday.
Although he was well-known in the recording industry, his obituary rated only 712 words in The New York Times, and not much more than that in Rolling Stone Magazine, although Rolling Stone published a picture, too.
Very few people outside the recording industry knew anything about what is shown in this documentary. However, Dowd's impact on the industry affected millions of fans of Eric Clapton, The Allman Brothers, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Tito Puente, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and Phil Ramone. All of those artists appear in this documentary.
Dowd also recorded a host of others, from perky Eileen Barton's hit If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake, for National Records in 1950, to Charlie Mingus, to assisting Abba in 1979, to Meat Loaf [!!] in 1983, to the Bee Gees in 1990, to the Allman Brothers Band. The discography on the documentary's website, www.thelanguageofmusic.com/, is 99 screens long, in other words, huge.
In February 2002, Dowd received a Grammy for his services to the recording industry. Eric Clapton said that Dowd had encouraged him to realize "what my skills were."
Dowd built the first control console to use sliders (linear faders) instead of knobs. He popularized to eight-track recorder invented by Les Paul.
This documentary was supposed to fix the problem of Dowd's relative obscurity.
However, the director and editor, who had never directed or edited a feature-length documentary before, may not have been experienced enough to bring such a complex and wonderful story to the screen. The time and place seem to shift out from under the viewer, as the film moves from archive footage, to re-creations, to contemporary interviews. Despite his seven years dedication to the project, Mark Moorman has put together a pleasant 90 minutes that do not, unfortunately, do justice to the subject.
An article in the Miami Herald, published just before this documentary was due to be shown at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival said the film "was supposed to be finished last week and at festival headquarters in Park City, Utah. But Moormann [sic] is still scrambling to complete the final mixing, putting in 16-hour days at Cineworks, a Miami production facility."
"That's part of making movies," he says of the last-minute rush. "We've got to have it done by Wednesday."
Moorman had worked hard on the film for seven years. He had paid for a lot of it himself, shuttling back and forth between the film and his regular gig as a cinematographer. The State of Florida gave him a puny $5,000 grant, and that was it.
Early in the process, Dowd handed Moorman a manuscript. It was Dowd's autobiography. In an interview with hybridmagazine.com, shortly after the documentary was shown at South by Southwest, Moorman said, "I was just amazed that one person could have been a participant in the making of so much history."
Maybe Moorman bit off more than he could chew. He told the interviewer for hybridmagazine.com, "I'd go on the Internet or go to the library and get books and I'd find out who Ahmet Ertegun was, and where he came from. And I did a lot of research on each individual person before I went to interview them."
Asked by Roxanne Bogucka of hybridmagazine.com about the use of re-creations, a dubious documentary technique which fell out of favor after it was used in the "March of Time" documentaries during World War II, Moorman explained, "That was about keeping the audience involved, you know. I mean the content could potentially be rather dry in nature - technical stuff like, you know, knobs and two-track, four-track."
"I mean it all seemed to be a little bit boring. It could potentially be boring, so I was like, well, 'let's spice this up and let's get these guys in town,' these jazz guys, and I used their music. It sounded like it could have been 1940s, but it was modern and cool. So I got the guys who did it and brought them in the studio, we shot it black-and-white, and had an art director come in and make the studio kind of look like 1948. And it was just about keeping the audience interested."
One key to what is missing in this documentary comes up in the hybridmagazine.com interview. Asked about Dowd's directorial genius, Moorman replies, "I didn't really have conversations with him about directing, but it is certainly something that has been brought up before, in that directors actually could get a really, in terms of what they could watch this film and really get some good feedback on how to direct, because Tom wasn't so much forcing his style on other people, he was getting the most out of the musicians and the artists he was working with."
Those conversations never had, might have been quite an addition to the film.
Everyone who worked on this documentary had the very best of intentions. Dowd's wonderful disposition -- he is always smiling -- comes through. It is a Valentine of a film to Dowd, for Dowd, about Dowd.
It is not a bad documentary. It is well worth watching. The music is GREAT! Just be prepared, after it's over, to want more, a lot more.
Description of Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
Studio: Uni Dist Corp (music) Release Date: 08/24/2004 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: NrJazz Music CDs
Bestsellers in Jazz Music CDs
Curtis Brothers Quartet - Blood, Spirit, Land, Water, FreedomRelease date: 2009-10-01; Music CD
![Jazz Casual - 3-Pack Vol. 1 (Count Basie, Carmen McRae, John Coltrane) [VHS] Image](/images/Jazz-Casual-3-Pack-Vol-1-Count-Basie-Carmen-McRae-John-Coltrane-VHS-6305320578-X.jpg)
Jazz Casuals: Coltrane Basie & Mcrae - Jazz Casual - 3-Pack Vol. 1 (Count Basie, Carmen McRae, John Coltrane) [VHS]Rhino / Wea; Release date: 1999-05-04; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $6.84
Price in other shops:
![Jazz Legend 2 [VHS] Image](/images/Jazz-Legend-2-VHS-6303400787-X.jpg){kind=small}
Buddy Rich - Jazz Legend 2 [VHS]Warner Brothers Pub.; Release date: 2000-10-20; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $11.90
Price in other shops:
![Living Legend of the Electric Guitar [VHS] Image](/images/Living-Legend-of-the-Electric-Guitar-VHS-6302658225-X.jpg){kind=small}
Les Paul - Living Legend of the Electric Guitar [VHS]Bmg Video Label; Release date: 1993-02-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $19.95
Price in other shops:
![Hurricane [VHS] Image](/images/Hurricane-VHS-6302251281-X.jpg){kind=small}
Herbie Hancock - Hurricane [VHS]View Video; Release date: 1992-04-07; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $2.50
Cocktails for Twoby band leader Spike Jones, Del Porter, Mel Blanc & Quartet, Jim Cassidy & The City Slickers
Music CD
Best price: $19.95
![Dave Grusin and the NY/LA Dream Band [VHS] Image](/images/Dave-Grusin-and-the-NY-LA-Dream-Band-VHS-6301724496-X.jpg)
Dave Grusin - Dave Grusin and the NY/ LA Dream Band [VHS]Umgd; Release date: 1990-06-26; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
![Diane Schuur & Count Basie Orchestra [VHS] Image](/images/Diane-Schuur-Count-Basie-Orchestra-VHS-630164770X-X.jpg){kind=small}
Count Basie, Diane Schuur - Diane Schuur & Count Basie Orchestra [VHS]Grp Records; Release date: 1996-01-30; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Damals in HamburgRelease date: 1999-08-11; Music CD
Best price: $22.89
Ben Webster - Ben WebsterRelease date: 2006-12-20; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
The History of Rock and RollWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-06-29; DVD
Best price: $17.01
Price in other shops:
A Great Day in HarlemImage Entertainment; Release date: 2006-01-03; DVD
Best price: $12.69
Price in other shops:
It Might Get LoudSony; Release date: 2009-12-22; DVD
Best price: $10.49
Price in other shops:
Stax/ Volt Revue Live In Norway 1967Uni; Release date: 2007-10-02; DVD
Best price: $8.82
Price in other shops:
Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter (DVD+CD)PBS; Release date: 2011-03-01; DVD
Best price: $13.30
Price in other shops:
The Search for Robert JohnsonJOHNSON,ROBERT; Release date: 2000-10-31; DVD
Best price: $5.24
Price in other shops:
Les Paul - Chasing SoundGear One; Release date: 2007-08-14; DVD
Best price: $14.77
Price in other shops:
Standing in the Shadows of MotownLions Gate; Release date: 2003-04-22; Published: 2003-04-01; DVD
Best price: $4.79
Price in other shops:
Respect Yourself: The Stax Records StoryUni; Release date: 2007-10-02; DVD
Best price: $4.46
Price in other shops:
Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet BuiltWEA DES Moines Video; Release date: 2007-06-12; DVD
Best price: $3.66
Price in other shops: