Vogel vision

>> Montreal big-band legend Vic Vogel is profiled in the touching documentary L’Homme de cuivre

by MALCOLM FRASER

Pianist, trombonist and bon vivant, Vic Vogel has held down the fort, conducting his Jazz Big Band in Montreal for over 25 years. A fixture at the Jazz Festival and a mentor to two generations of the city’s musicians, Vogel gets the documentary treatment in Rénald Bellemare’s L’Homme de cuivre: Vic Vogel.

After a brief biographical sketch, Bellemare leaps right into the present, focusing on Vogel’s 70th birthday in 2005. That year, Vogel went on a European tour, performing the music of Oscar Peterson. Leaving his big band at home, he instead assembles a crew of very young European musicians, many of whom are playing in the big-band style for the first time. Vogel whips the youngsters into shape with his enthusiasm for the music and indefatigable energy, and gets the sometimes equally youthful audiences on their feet with a vigour not seen since the ill-fated swing revival.

The hour-long doc is Bellemare’s full-length debut after over a decade as a director of photography. Though it’s by no means cinematically innovative, the film has a fresh energy. The testimonials from Vogel’s musicians, some of whom have played with his band for a quarter-century, and from various local cultural luminaries are filled with touchingly genuine affection. And by focusing the bulk of the film on the present day, Bellemare highlights Vogel’s undying work ethic and the sense that, though he’s an unapologetic jazz traditionalist, he’s not interested in dwelling on the past.

But although he outwardly disdains nostalgia, the past is undoubtedly present both in Vogel’s life and in the film. A hint of longing creeps into Vogel’s voice as he describes his early years, and the images of neon-lined Montreal boulevards evoke the time when jazz was central to urban nightlife.

The film stays away from Vogel’s personal life almost completely; he makes a fleeting reference to loneliness, but we get no sense of whether relationships or family have ever been a part of his life. A tabloid-style doc would surely have been inappropriate, but we’re left wondering about the nature of Vogel’s solitary path. Otherwise, though, the film is a poignant and heartfelt tribute to this colourful, quixotic local personality.

L’homme de cuivre: Vic Vogel opens this Friday, June 29

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