The end of Swing.
The birth of Cool.
The Old World
meets the Jazz Age. Music.
Separation.
Love.

Avram Saltzman is newly arrived in New York, a working musician with
talent and ambition. It is the mid 1940s, when a thriving population of Jewish players who worked in both popular jazz and swing bands and "oriental" (klezmer) orchestras were
being displaced by the advent of bebop and the increasing prominence of black musicians onstage and in recordings. It is a story of heritage, pride and conflict, when black and
white musicians shared musical styles and explored new avenues of expression after hours, but still weren't allowed to perform together in public.
Taking inspiration from Shakespeare's The Tempest, with live musicians onstage playing original jazz and klezmer music written specifically for
this project, Tempus looks at life spoken in the universal languages of music and love. |