A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
Director Damien Chazelle has always wanted to be a filmmaker, but before his breakout film "Whiplash", Chazelle tried his hand a jazz drumming. He remembers his first time a performance moved him so much that it brought him to tears.
First time that I cried at a work of art was at a drum solo that I saw. A drummer named Winard Harper, part of the Billy Taylor Trio, gave back in -- I would have been in High School -- 2005 or something. And I remember watching him slowly build this solo like a great chef and it just reached this sort of climatic stretch... and I just totally lost it. I totally teared up.
And it was weird to me. I've always kind of remembered it 'cause drums are as un-narrative as you get. They're some way seem as un-emotional as you get. You're not even playing with notes or chords and the things that normally stimulate emotions for people. So I wanted to translate that into this movie. I wanted to try and make drums and drums as an instrument as purely emotional as I could.
"Whiplash" is currently playing in select theaters across the nation.