Touching Bass

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Budget

Raised to date: $ 7,500.00
Estimate to complete: $ 240,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $ 247,500.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 09/15/2009

Status

Research & Development

Media Type

Video

Project End Use

Key Personnel

Nadine Patterson
Writer/Director
Nadine Patterson is an award winning independent producer/director. Her training in theatre, immersion in documentary film, and intense study of world cinema enable her to create works grounded in historical fact, with a unique visual palette. She was the only filmmaker selected for The Biennial 2000 at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Some of her films include : “I Used to Teach English”, Winner Gold Apple Award 1994 National Educational Film/Video Festival, Oakland, CA; “Anna Russell Jones: Praisesong for a Pioneering Spirit”, Best Documentary 1993 African American Women in the Arts Film/Video Competition, Chicago, IL; “Moving with the Dreaming”, Prized Pieces award from the National Black Programming Consortium in 1997; “Todo El Mundo Dance!” selected for the 2001-2002 Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival. Other notable works include: “Shizue”, screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1991; and “Release” shown at the Constellation Change Dance Film Festival of London in 2006. She recently completed her second masters at the London Film School in 2005. She received funding for her film work from The Philadelphia Foundation, The National Black Programming Consortium, The Bartol Foundation, and The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her feature film project “Touching Bass” is currently in development at Harmony Image Productions.

Warren Oree
Composer/Bassist

Warren Oree began playing the upright bass in 1973 at age 25. In 1975 he joined the group "Weusi Mutribu" and in 1979 he started the group that he leads today - The Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble. For the past five years he has been Artistic Director of the West Oak Lane Jazz & Arts Festival.

Since 1990, Warren has been lecturing and presenting workshops on jazz, music composition, and other aspects of music and its business at libraries, public and private schools, and universities. Also, he was commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art to compose music for five paintings by African American artists.

In addition to performing with Arpeggio, Warren has toured and/or recorded with: Jamaladeen Tacuma and Basso Nouveaux; Khan Jamal; Hamiette Bluiette. He has also performed with Donald Byrd, Wynton Marsalis, Odean Pope, and drummer Norman Connors. He has toured Europe, South America, the Caribbean, and throughout the United States.

When Warren isn't performing, he's busy behind the scenes composing, producing and arranging original works. He has composed the score for two documentaries by Harmony Image Productions entitled, "Anna Russell Jones - Praise Song for a Pioneer Spirit," which detailed the life and accomplishments of one of the first African-American Interior designers; and "Moving With the Dreaming," which was an in-depth look at the past and current struggles of the Australian Aborigines. Warren has also composed the theme song for two seasons of "Through the Lens," a TV program produced by Nadine Patterson for WYBE-TV channel 35, Philadelphia. His productions include a jazz opera entitled, "The Dream Tree," and he has written and directed a one act play about the effects of prison life on those inside and outside the prison walls entitled, "Living Forever, Waiting to Die." He is currently developing a jazz operea about the Christiana Pennsylvania Resistance of 1851.

Sia Kpakiwa
Actor, role of Zera Montgomery
Ms. Kpakiwa is a singer/dancer/actor, a triple threat. Sia Kpakiwa has performed on the West End in London as part of the incredibly successful cast of Disney’s "The Lion King" and "Dirty Dancing". She recently completed a tour with Stage Entertainment’s German/Austrian/Swiss tour of Sir Elton John’s "AIDA" (in German). Ms. Kpakiwa is featured in an IKEA commercial which will aired fall 2008 in the European Market. She has a leading role in Nadine Patterson’s short dance film Release, as Mira, wife and partner to Courtland. Currently Ms. Kpakiwa is a featured player in the London West End production of "Hairspray".

Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)

Jazz and Film Festivals; Public Television in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Southern Africa; Limited theatrical release; Internet distribution and DVD release. We will also do a series of workshops about the history of jazz in Philadelphia, and the role of Philadelphia musicians on the global music scene. We will use the film as a way of reaffirming the significance of jazz in the civil rights struggle of African Americans in the 20th Century. High Schools and Colleges and other sites of learning are places we plan to engage in a public dialog about political aspects of jazz in America. Touching Bass is one of our three art & culture projects that PBS affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia has agreed to air on their WHYY Arts roster in 2011.The other two are Tango Macbeth, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Our fiscal conduit is the Art Sanctuary in Philadelphia.

Funders

Name	Amount	Date
Individual Donations	$ 5,000.00	07/30/2009
MiNDTV/WYBE TV	$ 2,500.00	01/30/2008

Location(s)

217 Pelham Road
Philadelphia, 19119
See Google Maps

Short Synopsis

Jazz is democracy in action. This is the favorite saying of Casey Montgomery famed Philadelphia bassist who lived as an expatriate in London for over 30 years. This family drama begins at his passing, and the pilgrimage his daughter Zera makes to Philadelphia to uncover her family history.

Description/Treatment

Ancestral echoes of the Middle Passage reverberate through the upright bass handed down through three generations of the Montgomery family. Each generation deals with conflicts between dreams deferred, and the unfinished business of the past. Grandmom Mozelle was a pioneer in an all women’s band in the 1940’s, but she gave up her musical passion to raise her family in a segregated America. Her son Casey became a revolutionary of the 60’s and 70’s and used music to voice the ideals of the Black Power Movement. Upon his passing his daughter Zera finds herself ill at ease, struggling with her own issues of family, career and music, but also being pulled by something else. Where does this music come from? What is this music really about? Whose cries do we hear across time and space? Do we dare to listen? Do we dare to be healed?

The film is about the importance of knowing your family heritage. And it highlights the important role Philadelphia has played in the development of America’s classical music- Jazz.

The story is fictional, but it is based on my impressions of life in North Philadelphia’s African American working class communities, people with a sense of culture and style. The forgotten stories of people who played along side John Coltrane, the Heath brothers, Art Blakey, and Sun Ra, an amazing generation of jazz innovators. I want to bring the sights and sounds of that era to a new audience through narrative film. I am working with bassist composer Warren Oree on the soundtrack of the film as well as talented actors such as Johnnie Hobbs Jr., Brian Anthony Wilson, Sia Kpakiwa and Toni Nash. We did a practice shoot at the start of 2008, with funding from MiND TV videotaping several scenes from the screenplay. I learned a lot from the shoot and have since made several changes to the script.

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