Big Ben: Ben Webster in Europe (1966)

Big Ben: Ben Webster in Europe

Big Ben: Ben Webster in Europe (1967)
B&W/30 mins/Netherlands
Directed by Johann van der Keuken

Songs: “My Romance” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; “Perdido” by Hans Lengsfelder, Ervin Drake, and Juan Tizol; “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” by Cole Porter.
With: Ben Webster, Don Byas, Michiel de Ruyter, Dolf Verspoor, Jimmy Parsons, and Cees Slinger.

Ben Webster (1909–73), an American jazz tenor saxophonist from Kansas City—known for his tough, raspy, and brutal tone on stomps (with his distinctive growls) and, in contrast, for his warm and sentimental sound on ballads—spent his last days in the Netherlands, where an 8 mm camera was his companion alongside his saxophone.

Johann van der Keuken not only makes his own film but also incorporates some of Webster’s footage, presumably shot on 8 mm. The combination is cinematically intriguing, though perhaps less satisfying musically for Webster’s hardcore fans, who may prefer to hear and see a performance uninterrupted by rapid cuts.

There is a sequence in which van der Keuken alludes to the “beast” inside Webster (nicknamed "The Brute" because of his violent behavior when drinking) by inter-cutting shots of wild animals in a zoo and artificial advertising photographs with a haunting close-up of Webster in darkness.