Chet Baker, the epitome of West Coast cool, won the DownBeat Reader’s Poll as best trumpeter over Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Clifford Brown in 1955, the year after Chet Baker Sings introduced his unembellished, flat vocal stylings to the world. That same year Hollywood cast him in a B-movie war film, Hell’s Horizon, that might have made him a star had his heavy heroin habit not made that an impossibility. Five years later, he appeared as Chet l’americano in Howlers of the Dock, an early, little-known film by director Lucio Fulci who later gained fame with two giallo genre classics, including A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin.

The new Canadian film by Robert Budreau, Born To Be Blue, is a reimagining of Baker’s life starring Ethan Hawke. It juxtaposes black and white film images from a fictional biopic film-within-the-film starring Baker (sparked by the famous William Claxton mid-50s photographs of him that evoked James Dean), with a factually loose narrative history of the trumpeter’s life from 1966 to 1973, when he was relearning his embouchure and struggling to regain his trumpet-playing chops after losing his teeth in a beating related to his drug habit.

Hawke brilliantly captures Baker’s spirit in a convincing portrait of a drug-addled, music-loving womanizer. He’s believable singing “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” a cappella in a bowling alley and covers the iconic “My Funny Valentine” in the studio respectably, his voice lower than Baker’s but just as naked, if not unblemished. Equally essential, however, is Toronto’s Kevin Turcotte, whose uncanny trumpet on the soundtrack makes Hawke’s portrayal believable. The versatile Turcotte also supplies the sound for Gillespie’s and Davis’ horns, in brief cameos in two Birdland scenes.

Pianist David Braid, who arranged much of the extensive music track and even wrote a tune inspired by “Cherokee” and “Salt Peanuts,” leads a solid quartet with Turcotte, bassist Steve Wallace and drummer Terry Clarke. The music in the film is far more reality-based than the plot.

Born To Be Blue pulls no punches with Baker’s love of drugs. “Being a junkie is nobody’s fault,” he says early on. “It makes me happy; I love to get high.”

“Time gets wider, not just longer, and I can get inside every note,” Baker says later, about the effect of heroin on his music making. “Playing on methadone’s like wearing a condom.”

A visit to his parents in Yale, Oklahoma reveals the sourness of Baker’s relationship with his father (Stephen McHattie -- who once played Baker himself in Budreau’s short film The Deaths of Chet Baker -- in a searing cameo). Carmen Ejogo (Baker’s wife in the film-within-the-film) stands in sympathetically for Baker’s many wives and girlfriends. An amiable seducer, Baker used women for self-gratification and as drug procurers. Simply put, he was a junkie who loved to make music, as Born To Be Blue, to its credit, makes clear.

Born To Be Blue is currently onscreen at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

David Perlman talks Shostakovich with Sterling Beckwith.

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Najaf Ali and his father, Rafiq Ahmed, are drummers in Lahore, for a thousand years the centre of music in Pakistan.  Like many musicians there, Najaf learned to play in childhood under the tutelage of his father. A coup by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 led to the installation of Sharia law and the banning of music throughout the country. A rich musical tradition was suddenly cut off from its audience. By the time the restrictions had eased, there was a serious disconnect with the general population and much of the younger generation knew nothing of the music at all.

In 2004, Izzat Majeed founded Sachal Studios to provide a place for traditional music in a nation that had rejected its musical roots. After convincing a number of master musicians to pick up their instruments again, some classical and folk recordings were released with little fanfare. But it was an experimental album fusing jazz and South Asian instruments brought them worldwide acclaim. Their version of Dave Brubeck’s classic, Take Five, rode the Internet all the way to Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. And Brubeck himself said: “This is the most interesting recording of Take Five that I’ve ever heard.” (Majeed had fallen for jazz as a schoolboy when he heard Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck live in Lahore as part of the U.S. State Department’s Cultural Ambassadors program.)

Song of Lahore, the new documentary co-directed by Andy Schocken and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (who conceived it), begins smartly by focusing on the family connections among the members of the Sachal Jazz Ensemble (SJE), tracing their love of music and its roots while contextualizing their plight within the political and social history of Pakistan. Obaid-Chinoy, a double Oscar winner in the Short Documentary Film category -- including this year’s film about honour killings, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness -- is a socially conscious filmmaker with a journalistic background, who credits her time in Toronto from 2004 to 2015 with honing her craft.

Midway through this straightforward and informative documentary, Song of Lahore takes flight (literally and figuratively) when the SJE is invited by Marsalis to join him and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JALCO) for a concert in New York City. The energy and freedom of Manhattan liberate the visitors but it’s during the rehearsals for the concert that the real charm of the film takes hold.

The implacable rhythmic foundation of the three drummers is a natural fit with Marsalis’ horn-heavy orchestra (“You start,” Marsalis says to them. “We need you to set the groove up.”).  There is some drama: East and West must find avenues of communication; a misfiring sitar player is replaced by a local New Yorker. But the climactic footage of Take Five, Jelly Roll Morton’s New Orleans Blues and Ellington’s Limbo Jazz the next evening in the concert elevate the film to a higher plane. Baqar Abbas’ flute -- we saw him early in the film carving out a new instrument by hand and drilling it with perfectly placed holes -- can more than hold its own in a thrilling dialogue with JALCO’s flutist. Ballu Khan’s breathtaking tabla solos in New Orleans Blues are a standout. “When people are soulful and want to come together, then they do,” Marsalis says.

Rafiq Ahmed Bauji. Marsalis smiles as he repeats the name, delighting in its musicality. The musicality of Rafiq Ahmed’s dhol playing would later delight the Lincoln Center audience; as would Najat Ali’s naal.

Song of Lahore plays at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema March 4 to 10.

Koerner Hall was nearly full on Friday, February 26, for a concert of impeccably played 19th-century chamber music featuring the consummate musicianship of violinist Christian Tetzlaff, his sister Tanja Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt. Christian Tetzlaff’s musical intelligence and the secure pianism of Vogt anchored the trio for what was very well-balanced ensemble playing. The communication between the three was palpable. (The Tetzlaff siblings have been playing together since childhood.)

It was sophisticated music making, joyously conveyed and received in kind, a rare and memorable evening.

Schumann’s Piano trio No.2 in F Major Op.80 began with a colourful dialogue initiated by Christian Tetzlaff’s solo pianissimo. An onrush of intense thematic development saw the trio playing as if they were one instrument. The slow beauty of the second movement contained moments of awestruck wonder, with the violinist devoutly maintaining a ppp dynamic without being overpowered by Vogt’s sensitive piano. As the violin became transfixed by Schumann’s notes, the piano brimmed with life. The third movement epitomized an ideal balance among the three musicians, close to perfection, before the piece came to a satisfying end with the finale’s low-key charm.

Dvořák’s Piano Trio in E Minor Op.90 “Dumky” consists of six movements, each one built around the Slavonic folk element dumka, each melody of which Dvořák transformed from melancholy to exuberance. In the first movement of the Trio, the composer’s trademark dark cello line was initially coupled with the violin to form a mournful tune. As the piece progressed, the music became richer, more textured, until a sense of abandonment took over and all three players were consumed by the dance. The second movement began with another soulful cello theme, this time supported by Vogt’s lovely piano before the invitation to the dance was taken up enthusiastically by the entire trio. In the fourth movement, filagrees of dance and rhythm co-mingled in the Koerner Hall air, grounded in the keyboard. The wonderful spontaneity of the cello pizzicati greeted a particularly sublime ending.

Youthful streams of emotion became rivers of maturity in the first movement of Brahms’ Piano Trio No.1 in B Major Op.8. The light and jovial Scherzo was a cousin of the composer’s symphonic universe as its Beethoven-like theme thickened and grew. Beginning in the piano with a slow call to a hushed pair of strings in dialogue, the Adagio’s melodic phrases were carved shards of beauty in the trio’s capable hands while the waltz-like Allegro concluded the very satisfying program.

The next day in Roy Thomson Hall, the TSO, under the warm baton of guest conductor Louis Langrée in a program of 19th-century orchestral music, provided solid support for the amazing Marc-André Hamelin in a rousing rendition of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No.1 in G Minor Op.25. Hamelin’s well-judged technical pyrotechnics in the outer movements of the three-movement work glittered under his sensitive touch amidst the composer’s triumphal exuberance. But the highlight was the sublime Andante second movement where Hamelin’s limpid touch and clear approach slowed time down and transported the listener to a higher plane.

The capacity crowd which overflowed into the choir loft gave the Quebec-born pianist a well-deserved standing ovation but showered Langrée and the orchestra with even more enthusiasm at the conclusion of Schumann’s Symphony No.4 D Minor Op.120. The conductor brought an incisive clarity to the density of the symphony’s first movement, coaxed hushed solos from principal cellist Joseph Johnson and concertmaster Jonathan Crow in the second and brought the audience to its feet with the finale’s optimistic climax.

Langrée conducted the Schumann, and Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No.2 Op.72 which opened the program, without a score. He made the most of the overture’s dramatic excitement, much of it reminiscent of the composer’s Symphony No.6 and to a lesser extent, No.5, which were written shortly before. Emphasizing the many silences that followed big orchestral tuttis, added to the overarching fact which I couldn’t resist: that Beethoven’s shadow loomed over both concerts just as it did over much of the entire 19th century.

David Perlman chats with Marshall Pynkoski, co-artistic director of Opera Atelier.

To hear the full conversation with Marshall Pynkoski click the play button below. For any of our other podcasts, search for “The WholeNote” in your favourite podcast app, or go to TheWholeNote.com/podcasts for the entire list.

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An exotic, compelling journey up the headwaters of the Amazon with echoes of Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now, the third film by Colombian director Ciro Guerra, Embrace of the Serpent, one of the nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, has opened at TIFF Bell Lightbox just in time for the upcoming Academy Awards.

Based on two real-life scientific expeditions, 30 years apart, in the first half of the 20th century, this gorgeous splash of black and white cinematography is a searing indictment of colonialism and the Catholic Church, whose priests enslaved Indigenous children orphaned as collateral damage of the ravenous greed of the Colombian rubber barons.

So authentic is the look of the film it’s as if we’re watching found footage beautifully restored.

The two river journeys cover the same territory and Guerra deftly cuts back and forth between them. The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (the German,Theodor Koch-Grünberg, and the American, Richard Evans Schultes) who travelled through the Colombian Amazon in search of the yakruna, a rare, sacred plant with psychedelic and curative powers that grows on rubber trees. Each was guided by the same Amazonian tribesman, Karamakate, and it is his perspective which steers our perceptions; the American followed the German’s trail via notebooks he had kept that were published after his death. Not to be outdone, the filmmaker was looking for the soul of the Amazon itself. It’s no understatement to say that he found some of its shards.

The stunning photography (can I repeat myself enough?) is underscored by the film’s sound design which uses natural sounds of water, birds, insects and the force of the river itself to buttress the images. An ambient drone or ominous synthesizer guides our senses from time to time; the occasional notes of traditional flute music add to the authenticity of the setting. The American’s prized possession is a phonograph on which he listens incongruously to Haydn’s Creation. Even Karamakate, now aged and disconnected from his shamanistic powers, finds it curiously inoffensive.

At the film’s climax, the scientist’s  ingestion of the yakruna momentarily turns the black and white images to colour and the soundtrack explodes with a musical starburst.

Embrace of the Serpent is a road trip on water you’ll be glad to have taken, a spellbinding journey that doubles as forensic anthropology with a subtle, non-didactic ecological message.