[Dixielandjazz] Young At Heart

[Stephen G Barbone]

CAVEAT - Not OKOM - But, a good read for the older folks that make up  
much of the DJML. Age is a simply a number, not a license to become  
old before our time.

Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers  
of The Times.
NY TIMEs - April 9, 2008 - By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Retired, Yes, but Never Too Old to Rock

Time revises every taste and closes every gap. To observe the  
Young at Heart Chorus, a fluctuating group of about two dozen singers  
whose average age is 80, perform “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees in  
Stephen Walker’s documentary “Young at Heart” is to be uplifted, if  
slightly unsettled.

Sung by people approaching the end of their lives, the song is no  
longer about strutting through the urban jungle with your elbows out;  
it is a blunt survival anthem. These singers, most of them well- 
rehearsed amateurs, refuse to go gently into that good night. For them  
music is oxygen.

When they perform punk classics like “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by  
the Clash or “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones, the notion of a  
generation gap begins to crumble. Apart from the rebellious attitude  
behind the songs’ creation, these are elementary meat-and-potatoes  
tunes: “Sing Along With Mitch” material but with a hip credential.

The Clash song is a lusty group cheer, which, interpreted by people of  
advanced age, could be taken as a stubborn assertion of choosing life  
over death. “I Wanna Be Sedated,” an extremely catchy song any way you  
look at it, comes across as an ironic refusal to follow a doctor’s  
orders and lie back in a medicated haze. Members who suffer from  
chronic multiple ailments are shown struggling out of sickbeds to  
attend rehearsals.

At moments the movie, made for British television, risks being a  
cloying, rose-colored study of happy old folks at play, and the cheer  
sounds forced. But the lives of the several members it examines at  
some depth are too real and complicated to resemble a commercial  
starring Wilford Brimley as a Norman Rockwell grandpa. The movie  
offers an encouraging vision of old age in which the depression  
commonly associated with decrepitude is held at bay by music making,  
camaraderie and a sense of humor.

Since its beginnings as a collective arts project in 1982 at a center  
for the elderly in Northampton, Mass., the chorus has developed into a  
popular local ensemble with an international reputation. It has made  
12 tours of Australia, Europe and Canada and serenaded Norwegian  
royalty. Accompanying the singers is a solid core of professional rock  
musicians who help ground their sometimes wavering voices.

Sandwiched into the movie are several surreal music videos made by the  
film’s producer, Sally George. The wittiest, created around “Road to  
Nowhere” by Talking Heads, depicts singers happily stranded on the  
side of an American highway.

The movie concentrates on the rigorous two-month preparations for a  
2006 concert at the Academy Theater in Northampton. Guided by the  
chorus’s demanding longtime director, Bob Cilman, the members are  
learning new material, including “Yes We Can Can,” the Allen Toussaint  
hit for the Pointer Sisters, whose lyrics repeat “can” 71 times in  
intricate, staccato patterns; Sonic Youth’s enigmatic, equally  
demanding “Schizophrenia”; and the Coldplay ballad “Fix You.”

The fact that the chorus’s members are willing to tackle such daunting  
material attests to the spirit of adventure that is a crucial spur to  
their shared bonhomie. More than one member admits that his or her  
favorite music is classical, opera or show tunes. These rock songs are  
unfamiliar. Instead of comfortable walks around the block, rehearsals  
(there are three a week) are demanding hikes over hilly terrain. The  
challenge only makes it more exciting.

Late during the making of “Young at Heart” two members of the chorus, Bob  
Salvini and Joe Benoit, died within a week. Although neither death was  
a complete surprise, occurring so close together, they come as shock  
to a group dedicated to living in the present as fully and exuberantly  
as possible. The upbeat realism of everyone connected with  
“Young at Heart” might be summarized in six words: Life goes on until it  
doesn’t.

“Young at Heart” is rated PG (Parental Guidance suggested). It includes  
some strong language. - Opens on Wednesday in New York and Los  
Angeles. Directed by Stephen Walker; director of photography, Eddie  
Marritz; edited by Chris King; produced by Sally George; released by  
Fox Searchlight Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes.