Bridges-Go-Around (1958), made by one of the forerunner Jazz Film artists of all time, Shirley Clarke, is a short film, or more precisely two shorts in one. Composed of a series of shots from New York bridges, the film, in its first half, is edited and synced with the music of Teo Macero. For the second half, the very same images, as the first half, are repeated, but this time they are accompanied by the electronic music of Louis and Bebe Barron. So Bridges-Go-Around is a film which is played twice, but each projection, thanks to specific effects created by each musical genre, gives a distinctive impression and even the meaning of the images change and assiduously contrast/complete/comment on the other half.
In fact, Bridges-Go-Around wasn't originally designed as a twice-played film with two soundtracks, but it was merely one four-minute-long film with Barrons' music. Clarke used the music of Barrons, but when the copyright issues arose, she asked Columbia records jazz producer and trumpet player Teo Macero to compose a replacement. Later, Clarke who liked the both versions started screening them back to back. Like a jazz musician, Clarke turned the spontaneity of moment into an extension of her art, a prudent experimentation which can be seen as a study of the relation between sound and image.
