Alone, but not lonely, spirit of the mountains

Alojzij Žakelj

 Alone but not lonely spirit of the mountains

I admire man of silence, patience and humbleness. Wonderful and rare to meet a man who is detached from the world but not despising it, loves life but seems is not chasing it.

Blue is the sky from onionfilms on Vimeo.

BLUE, IS THE SKY
Synopsis
Lojz is contemplating about time, geography, colors and bible in an old
military bunker high up in the Alps.
A lot of people, even his parents think that he is a bit "strange". A
"loner".
But he doesn’t feel different from other people. His decisions make him
different.
Simplicity of life is obtained by clearness of decisions we make.
Alojz Žakelj has made his choice.
Long ago he discovered that he want to live in high mountains.
"Beauty of this landscape overwhelmed me. I knew in an instant that’s
where I want to live" he says.
He has two lifes: one as a metal worker in factory and the other as a
mountain eremite.
If he could coose he would stay up in the mountains. "Time is always
to short for me up here" he says. But he must make his living in the
factory.
When he discovered an abandoned military casern high up in the
mountains he decided that he will make it his home. This is the highest
home in Slovenia even higher than all other mountain hutts.
Later on he build another, wooden bivuac on a high very narrow rock. It
is hard to reach this place for a climber but he brought all the material
up there and constructed everything by his own hands.
Often people doesn’t understand his way of life. Especially his parents.
They would like him to get married and heave children like all the rest
of "normal" people. They, especialy his mother doesn‘t think that he
achieved something in his life. She thinks he is some kind of a looser,
because he didn‘t choose family life. There is a constant conflict
beetween them.
Lojz likes solitude, but he also likes company of people.
He never feels alone or bored in his high home. He studies geography,
world travels and the Bible-book of books.
There’s a lot of clocks in his home. He thinks that time is very
important. "Time is entity who leads us from past to the future" is one
of his thoughts. To be able to take advantage of one’s life you heave
to be very careful how you are spending your time, because everyone
has a limited amount of it.
He colored his home in bright colors. Every color for Lojz has a
meaning: red is for the road, yellow is the light, gray is color of the
rocks and blue is the sky.
CREDITS:
cast:
ALOJZ ŽAKELJ
MARIJA ŽAKELJ
ALOJZ ŽAKELJ st.
MATEJ SVETINA
MAGDA PINTAR
Directr of photography
BERNARD PERME
Asistant cameraman
ROBERT DOPLIHAR
Sound recording
TONI ŽEROVNIK
Lights
BORIS OREHEK
Music chosen by
BLAŽ ŠIVIC􏰀
Sound mix
DRAGO KOČIŠ
security
JANKO AŽMAN
STANKO ŠMID
Asistant director
MOJCA ŠKODLAR
Executive production
GORAZD KONČAR
ROBERT KONČAR􏰀􏰀
editing
ALEŠ DOLINAR
Writen and directed by
SIMON OBLEŠČAK
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
Program editor
ALMA LAPAJNE
TV SLOVENIJA
2005

"Stebrasta skala"

Triglav

Songs of the Volcano (Slight Return)

...Songs Of The Volcano was filmed during two trips in 2003 and 2004, on location in and around Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. The camera I used stood up remarkably well considering what we were up against. On the first trip, the shooting conditions were pretty extreme. The volcano Tavurvur, which had destroyed eighty per cent of the town in a violent eruption in 1994, was still spewing out tonnes of fine volcanic ash, which sometimes got a bit lumpier and fell like snow. Generally it was a bit like bull dust and could find the tiniest gaps to enter, except its razor sharp granules with a bit of friction worked like sandpaper and could wreck anything. Coupled with the incredible humidity and torrential downpours, it was a mighty challenge to keep equipment clean and working properly. When we were shooting outside, I was constantly lens-cleaning with a can of compressed air, brush and cleaning tissues, usually under my shirt or another cover of some sort. ...more

Same old ass same old pass
6 steps to haven, thegoodone is up there.
For some good friends down here...

Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella

When you think of Latin percussion, think of Francisco Aguabella. Perhaps the finest Afro-Cuban master percussionist , who was while living synonymous with his instrument the conga - one of the highest compliments a musician can ever receive.
 He was a master of Bata (the sacred Santeria drumming tradition), Abaqua and Yeza, and secular Afro-Cuban jazz and salsa styles. Discover this enigmatic Cuban drummer, a virtual Rosetta stone of African culture, who has been highly influential in the growth of Latin jazz, pop and fusion in the U.S. 

Born in Matanzas, Cuba, Francisco Aguabella was a master of the Yoruba-derived bata drums and rumba as well as contemporary traditions including Cuban son, salsa, and Latin jazz. Though he has released only a half dozen albums, his work is best measured by his contribution to the Afro-Cuban sounds and the growth of Latin jazz. "He is one of the strongholds of our music and has always kept the commitment to our Cuban rhythm, that's very important, " says Cuban jazz player Israel "Cachao" Lopez. Aguabella has received a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts and is the subject of a documentary film by Les Blank, Sworn to the Drum. Francisco Aguabella's passion and fire on the conga drums are absolutely contagious and not to be missed.

directed by Les Blank 1985
35 minutes

Sworn To the Drum


more Francisco Aguabella

here
amazing
&

here
amazing
:)

My name is Albert Ayler

A MidSummer holyGhost :

Albert Ayler was the American free-jazz saxophone pioneer who (as one story goes) claimed that the survival of his mother and his kid brother required a sacrifice, and then drowned himself in New York's East River in 1970, at the age of 34. Other stories suggested he had been shot by the cops, executed by the Mob for a drugs grudge, even weighted down with a jukebox to symbolise all those commercially popular records he had lacked the good sense to make. Some, citing Jimi Hendrix's demise in the same year, believed it was part of a plot against black musicians. But a holy ghost was certainly how Ayler saw himself, saying: "Trane [John Coltrane] was the father. Pharoah [Sanders] was the son. I was the holy ghost."
Ayler was born in Cleveland in 1936. He was taught music by his sax and violin-playing father, toured in R&B bands in his teens, was forced by family economics out of college and into the army, then moved on to the jazz scenes of Cleveland, Stockholm and New York.
 He became a sublime, terrifying, impassioned and uncompromising performer - and such an influence on his mentor John Coltrane, that Coltrane asked that Ayler and Ornette Coleman play at his funeral.

Yet for all his radicalism, Ayler's work eerily recalled the ragged polyphonies, street-march beats, gospel songs and spirituals of the earliest African-American music.
 They called him "Bicycle Horn" in his native Cleveland: the sustained howl and battering ferocity of some of his later improvisations taxed even the sympathetic listener. He didn't have the wider appeal of being idiosyncratically swinging like Coleman, or explicitly evolved from the song form like Coltrane.
Ayler was ahead of his time. Of his music he once said, echoing a sentiment of Thelonious Monk's:
 "If people don't like it now, they will." He was right.
Ayler saw himself as a jazz missionary, revealing a new improvisational path that didn't depend on the chord-changes of The Great American Songbook, but was more like impulsively painting in sound. His playing often resembled the mixture of exultation and terror expressed by the possessed in religious rituals - and Ayler was definitely a man possessed.. ....




 [Un]easy   listening ... Albert Ayler


[Un]easy    watching ... Albert Ayler




infos  about the documentary