Tom Surgal’s ‘FIRE MUSIC’ Opens Friday, September 10th

Submaribe Deluxe logo

Submarine Deluxe Presents in Association with Joseph Wemple, Films We Like, and Mexican Summer 'FIRE MUSIC'

Sigma 7 Ornette Coleman
Sigma 7 Ornette Coleman

Director and Writer: Tom TurgalL
Featuring: Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra & His Arkestra, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy and many more.
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
Country: USA

FIRE MUSIC opens theatrically in New York at the Film Forum on Friday, September 10th and Los Angeles at the Laemmle Glendale on September 17th with a national
release to follow.

FIRE MUSIC is an official selection of the New York Film Festival

John Tchicai Münster
John Tchicai Münster

Although the free jazz movement of the 1960s and ‘70s was much maligned in some jazz circles, its pioneers – brilliant talents like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane – are today acknowledged as central to the evolution of jazz as America’s most innovative art form. FIRE MUSIC showcases the architects of a movement whose radical brand of improvisation pushed harmonic and rhythmic boundaries and produced landmark albums like Coleman’s Free Jazz: A Collective Inspiration and Coltrane’s Ascension. A rich trove of archival footage conjures the 1960s jazz scene along with incisive reflections by critic Gary Giddins and a number of the movement’s key players.

Writer / Director Tom Surgal is known for directing a series of groundbreaking music videos for leading alternative bands like Sonic Youth, Pavement and The Blues Explosion. Tom was initially mentored in filmmaking by Brian De Palma and would go on to work in a wide range of film production jobs, including production design and casting. Tom is also a musician who has performed regularly with Nels Cline (Wilco), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Jim O'Rourke and Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges) and is co-leader of the improvisational ensemble White Out. He is also a curator who has programmed celebrated music series at various downtown New York venues, including an entire month of shows at John Zorn's hallowed performance space The Stone.

Tom is recognized as a leading authority on Avant-Garde Jazz and boasts one of the world's largest collections of Free Jazz recordings.