Old Things That Are New to Me — Zachariah

While doing some research today on the new Bill Frisell\Matt Chamberlain project Floratone (more on that in a few days perhaps), I came across this video on Chamberlain’s MySpace page under his ‘influences.’ At first I thought it was a straight forward old Western film, until the gunman turn out to be none other than drummer Elvin Jones.

The apparently very surreal gunslinger film, called Zachariah was released in 1971 and featured the Jones as ‘Job Cain.’ While made in the early ’70s, it certainly seems to hearken back to the 50’s style hokey Western genre, starring mostly no-name actors. Well, except for Dick Van Patten who played a character named ‘The Dude.’ All I can say is that I’m amazed that jazz-funk and explosive drum solos even co-existed in the days of the Wild West.

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One additional random thought… What’s the story on the 1950’s pop cultural love and goofy nostalgia for all things Western? Was there a reason it reached such a pinnacle in this era? Much like jazz, the Western genre has never quite reached the heights of mainstream popularity since those days of Gunsmoke, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and all the various Saturday matinée serials.

Even the imagery of Sonny Rollins’ great album Way Out West jumped on that bandwagon. The album, for those interested, is something of a ‘lesser’ work by the ‘saxophone colossus’ (if you can say that about anything Rollins released) but is still a great jazz record.