Kids, Jazz & Making Chops

"Who's been sheddin' over the summer?" That's what all the jazz kids who were the subjects of my documentary Chops would be buzzing about once classes started and they were back in the band room. They were talking about who'd been to the woodshed--the practice room--for how long, and with what kind of intensity. And it was of consuming interest because it might foretell a shake-up in the musical pecking order. Me, I just loved that kind of stuff because these 6th and 7th and 8th graders could be so completely single-minded about it, so devoted to the dream of being on the same stage as the top players in the high school. And when they went to hear those players, it was with a heightened perception of the talent and the moves and the prerogatives of status.

So really, in filming Chops, I just wanted to look at the world for a while through their eyes, and to see what would happen when they hit the swirling vortex of high school. I wondered what it would take for them to stay on the path they loved. Would their enthusiasm be enough to keep them going?

http://www.jalc.org/about/news/newsflash.asp?releaseID=97

http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/tixSYS/2007/filmguide/title-detail.php?AlphaRange=CC&ShowShorts=&ShowPast=N