Tom Dowd and the Language
of Music
 If you’re a music lover and want to know why
you should care about home theater, you need to see this movie. The chances are that you
never got a chance to see it in a movie theater, and that right there is a pretty good
reason for you to have your own.
But there are lots of worthy films out there that
you’ll never get a chance to see in your local googolplex. What makes Tom Dowd and
the Language of Music such a compelling argument for HT is that it will fill you to
overflowing with your love of music. And then you’ll want to see it again. Try
that with cable.
I’ll make a prediction: Watching this movie will make
your life better.
Tom Dowd was a recording engineer. You’ve probably
heard some of his work -- he recorded Aretha Franklin’s "Respect" as well
as John Coltrane’s "A Love Supreme" and Cream’s "Sunshine of Your
Love." Actually, the list of musicians Dowd collaborated with is uniquely impressive:
Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious
Monk, Eric Dolphy, Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, the Drifters, Bobby Darin, Sonny and Cher,
Otis Redding, Cream, the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Derek and the Dominoes
-- to, as they say, name but a few.
And "collaboration" is precisely the right word.
Dowd didn’t force himself on the musicians; instead, as we see in the film, he became
part of the creative process, making suggestions, solving problems, and keeping the
atmosphere loose and unpressured. As he demonstrates in a few scenes, his suggestions
frequently helped the artists he worked with break through creative logjams; the music
they created with Dowd might have never existed in the same form had he not been present
at the creation.
The format of TDATLOM will be familiar to anyone
with basic cable: It’s a documentary of the talking heads variety. There’s a lot
of footage of Dowd, as well as tons of cameos by famous musicians he worked with. But this
isn’t VH-1. Dowd didn’t almost lose everything, only to come back strong after
giving up drugs, alcohol, and bad behavior -- instead, he seems to have been a fairly
level-headed guy from the beginning.
Dowd’s parents were a concertmaster and a soprano, and
he studied physics at Columbia. In fact, he worked on the atomic bomb, but when he
realized that security concerns would prevent him from receiving even college credit for
his contribution, he decided he needed to find a new line of work. Physics’ loss was
music’s gain -- and ours too, as it turns out.
The DVD edition of this documentary is a killer.
Documentaries do not, for the most part, boast the same production values as blockbuster
features, but TDATLOM looks and sounds pretty darn good. Because so much of the
movie is about music, it helps that the music we hear sounds so good.
The DVD also boasts some interesting interviews that were
deleted from the original film, and a couple of vignettes -- such as one on Edison and the
history of recording -- that are almost worth the price of admission in themselves.
All of which may sound interesting to you, but it
doesn’t prepare you for the impact of the film itself. After watching it, you’ll
feel better for having made the acquaintance of Tom Dowd, even posthumously and at a
distance. You’ll feel better for having seen Tom Dowd and the Language of Music.
And then, if you’re at all like me, you’ll go to
your record collection (or the nearest record store) and start picking out a very large
to-play pile. As I said, this movie can actually improve your life.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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