NEWS / Monterey County Film Commission
Sept. 8, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Karen Nordstrand, Director of Marketing
831-646-0910 / Karen@filmmonterey.org
www.FilmMonterey.org
Clint Eastwood’s Jazz Film “Bird” to screen
Sept. 17 in Monterey
Monterey County Film Commission and the Monterey Jazz Festival present the movie classic about jazz great Charlie Parker, and a talk by local jazz expert Bill Minor
On the evening before the Monterey Jazz Festival opens, the Monterey County Film Commission in association with the Monterey Jazz Festival will present a special free screening of the Clint Eastwood-directed jazz film “Bird,” and a talk by Monterey Peninsula jazz expert Bill Minor. The event begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., in downtown Monterey.
“Bird” explores the life and times of jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, who had a new style of music and was credited with revolutionizing jazz in the 1940s in New York. The 1988 film stars Forest Whitaker, who depicts Parker’s troubled world as a musician whose wife Chan tried to help him through the highs and lows of his life. The film won an Oscar for Best Sound in 1989.
Prior to the movie’s showing, Minor will speak about the impact of the Monterey Jazz Festival, which he has attended
Bill Minor at piano
since the early 1980s, and give insight into the role of Parker in the jazz world. Minor is an educator, writer and musician-composer, who authored three nonfiction books on jazz, including “Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years.” Minor saw Parker play live in Detroit in 1954 with Stan Kenton’s Orchestra.
The screening of “Bird” is the first of a series of three films to be shown locally in a salute to cinematographer Jack Green, who last year received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the esteemed American Society of Cinematographers. On the ASC website, Green described his use of shadow to shape light for the film in “Bird,” his third film as a cinematographer and said, “If I could be remembered for my work on one film, it would be ‘Bird.’ ” Green also worked with Clint Eastwood on several of his later films, including “The Bridges of Madison County,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” and the Academy Award winner “Unforgiven.”
Free tickets to the event may be obtained through the Monterey County Film Commission and at outlets listed on its website, www.FilmMonterey.org.
Event sponsors are Alternative Café, Fenton & Keller, J.R. Rouse Real Estate, Dark Light Pictures, Nico’s Ristorante Mediterraneo, 360 Prop Works, Inc., Old Monterey Business Association, the Arts Council for Monterey County, Humble Pictures, GuestLife Monterey Bay Magazine, Monterey County Weekly, Culver Studios, and the Golden State Theatre.
For more information contact the Monterey County Film Commission at 831-646-0910 or info@filmmonterey.org.
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MEDIA NOTE: BIO INFORMATION AND HEADSHOTS
OF BILL MINOR ARE AVAILABLE
The Monterey County Film Commission is a non-profit organization proactively marketing Monterey County as a destination for the motion pictures, television and related industries,for the purpose of stimulating economic development, creating jobs, providing and supporting
educational opportunities in those areas.
