Music for Black Pigeons

What does it mean to be a musician? The stars of Music for Black Pigeons can’t answer that question—with words, anyway. They respond instead by making music—in the studio, with the camera rolling.

Filmmakers Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed followed the Danish guitarist and composer Jakob Bro in his musical encounters with heroes of contemporary jazz such as Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell and Midori Takada. The unspoken, but plainly visible joy and admiration they express when greeting each other says everything they can’t put into words. And when the sounds of their instruments fill the room, something magical happens—something the musicians themselves find it difficult to explain.

Moving along calmly, the film, like Bro’s compositions, is an invitation to reflect. What is clear throughout is that the love of music is universal, and differences in nationality, gender, color and age are of no concern.