Movie: Charles Lloyd: Arrows into Infinity

Charles Lloyd: Arrows Into Infinity:  a documentary tribute to a great musician.    If you are a Charles Lloyd fan, you should see this film.    The approximate two hour film traces Lloyd’s career from the late 1950’s through a performance in 2011.  The movie splices commentary from a number of individuals such as Herbie Hancock, Robbie Robertson and Stanley Crouch with Lloyd’s music.  The movie could have been edited better, however, due to the music, I didn’t mind.  The movie was co-directed by Jeffrey Morse and Dorothy Darr, Lloyd’s wife of 40 years.  Lloyd, who is now 75 years old, was born in Memphis in March 1938.  Although the movie references his place of birth, the film is more a celebration of his music.  The film hints at some of the negatives that occurred during Lloyd’s life (drugs) but skips over why he disappeared from the music scene for more than 15 years (there were no Lloyd recordings in the 1980’s).  If you are under 40, you probably haven’t heard of Charles Lloyd, who became famous as a jazz crossover playing the Fillmore and Monterey in the 60’s and 70’s.  Historical tidbit: as a result of Lloyd’s non-government sanctioned performance in Russia in 1967, Russia literally banned the saxophone from the country for a period of time and the private promoters who had sponsored Lloyd’s Russian performance ended up with a stay in Siberia.  Arrows Into Infinity was shown at the Doris Duke Theatre as part of the African American Film Festival.  I don’t know if the DVD is available or if any other venue will present this film.  It has been shown at a number of film festivals but does not appear to have had a general theatre release.  The film shown at Doris Duke was not of the best technical quality.  But I was there for the music and sufficient performance sequences were on screen to please this viewer.