Northampton Jazz Festival Kicks Off 2024 with Jazz Film Night on June 13
The Northampton Jazz Festival will kick off its 2024 festival season with a documentary film, “Buster Williams Bass to Infinity,” on Thursday, June 13 at 7 p.m. at Northampton Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley St.
The 2021 film directed and produced by Adam Kahan tells the story of Buster Williams, an ambitious and courageous teenage bass player, who seized opportunity after opportunity to play as a sideman with jazz musicians across the globe at the very top of their game. It is told with the infamous, reserved pride of the bass player, the musician cited as the glue to any band—the one who makes everyone else sound good.
On a deeper level, the film explores the intangible qualities of America’s original art form—the universal music known as jazz—as told by Williams and other jazz musician greats. In the film, Williams is joined by, and plays with, some of the greatest living contributors to the music: Benny Golson, Herbie Hancock, Rufus Reid, Christian McBride, Larry Willis, Carmen Lundy, Kenny Barron and Lenny White.
After the screening, Kahan will lead a Q&A session with the audience, joined by Williams’ longtime friend and colleague, Avery Sharpe, the world-renowned bassist, composer, arranger and band leader, who lives in Western Mass.
Kahan is a filmmaker, musician and human rights activist. He has made multiple documentaries, often focusing on artists and musicians, as well as short narrative and experimental films. His feature documentary, “The Case of the Three Sided Dream,” about multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, won three ‘Best Documentary’ awards, was named one of the top 10 music documentaries of 2014 and was commercially released in 2016. His follow-up film, “Buster Williams Bass to Infinity,” was called “one of the finest music documentaries we have seen” by UK Jazz News.
Kahan has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, New York State Council on the Arts and The Catapult Film Fund. He currently works as senior project manager for the Human Rights Foundation in New York City and is a working jazz bassist who composes, records and plays live regularly.
Living in New York City since 1968, Williams has played, recorded and collaborated with jazz giants such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Art Blakey, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and countless others, becoming a giant in his own right.
Now 82, Williams is a prodigious musician whose playing has known no limits. He has recorded soundtracks for movies including “Les Choix des Armes”; “McKenna’s Gold” with Gregory Peck; and David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks,” among others. He’s recorded television commercials for some of America’s best-known brands, and has appeared and played on television programs such as the “Johnny Carson Tonight Show” with Erroll Garner and the “Jay Leno Tonight Show,” on which he performed five of his original compositions with the Branford Marsalis Tonight Show Band. Williams’ awards include a Grammy in 1979, the Soka Gakkai International Glory Award, the Soka Gakkai International Cultural Award, among numerous other awards and proclamations.
The movie trailer can be viewed on YouTube.
Tickets for Northampton Jazz Festival Film Night are $15 in advance on Eventbrite (plus online ticketing fees) or $20 at the door. There will be a guest reception at 6 p.m. For more information, visit northamptonjazzfest.org/jazz-film-night.
