Rewind and Play

A highly innovative music documentary about the great jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, Rewind and Play is edited entirely from a French television programme in 1968, which was never broadcast. French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis keeps the raw edges and outtakes, zoning in on an astonishingly intimate recording of the great man. He improvises at the piano as the crew attend to lights and cameras, clearly uncomfortable in the heat of the studio but transcending the stereotypical depictions of a shallow media machine as the extraordinary music shines through.

The sociology of jazz has barely changed since the 1950s. This is where I understood the industry of small venues. The owners – most of whom are white – squeeze in as many people as possible and kick them out as soon as the set is over. The musicians – most of whom are Black – go from show to show trying to earn a living, without any social safety net. This represents what Black musicians had to go through, with people who were disrespectful yet who also admired their work. The material shows us Thelonious Monk living between takes. We can also see the media machine that helped create so many stereotypes.

Director Alain Gomis, from an interview with France-Amérique magazine