From filmmakers Jorgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed, ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ is a cinematic improvisational documentary that explores the lives and processes of some of the world’s best-renowned and prolific jazz musicians including Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, and Midori Takada. 

An informed and intimate portrayal of the jazz scene that offers revelatory glimpses for fans of the genre, ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ strikes a universal chord in its pursuit of wider questions centred around creativity. How does it feel to play? What does it mean to listen? Is it even possible to put the emotions of music into words? 

Shot throughout North America and Europe over a number of years, ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ finds inspiration not only in the individual and diverse methods of the musicians documented, but in the unique energy and camaraderie created when they collaborate. 

Paying tribute to the time-honoured jazz tradition of simply “letting the tape roll”, Leth and Koefod capture intimate, improvised moments between icons of experimental music at recording spaces in New York, Copenhagen and Lugano. Unpredictable live jams are interspersed with brief, illuminating portraits of those participating, including celebrated jazz saxophonist Mark Turner, innovative double bassist Larry Grenadier, avant-garde jazz drummers Joey Baron and Andrew Cyrille, trumpet player Palle Mikkelborg and the wildly prolific founder of ECM Records, Manfred Eicher.

Celebrating the work of an esoteric cast who proved to be in turns amusing, spiritual, short-tempered, introspective and almost-always eccentric, ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ guides its subjects into open-hearted speculation concerning perfectionism, balance and process. Converging from different scenes, backgrounds, approaches and continents, the pioneering musicians at the heart of ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ are each united in their ambition to honour their musical forefathers while pushing the form ever forward.

Reimagining music as matter and energy and as spellbound by the pause between notes as the potential of noise, ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ transcends era and formula in a searching, subtle documentary that’s as confident and free of cliche as the icons it studies.