Even in the era of internet, where the doors to archives are easily accessed, a successful music documentary needs a competent hand that respectfully structures the material and puts it into order. “Charles Lloyd – Arrows Into Infinity” (2013) by Dorothy Darr and Jeffery Morse masterfully uses time and space and captivates the viewer with a narrative flow from archive material and witness’s comments about a musical biography that artistically sped from peak to peak since the mid-50ies but also had to cope with a hiatus of almost 20 years between 1970 and 1989. The film is strictly chronological on the one hand, but allows critics, witnesses and Lloyd himself to retrospectively comment certain developments and decisions on the other. For about two hours, this truly astonishing life journey is told with many anecdotes: by Lloyd himself, and artistic companions like Jack DeJohnette, Geri Allen, Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers, Eric Harland, Zakir Hussain, as well as observers Herbie Hancock, Don Was, Jim Keltner, John Densmore, Stanley Crouch and Ornette Coleman. The respect and admiration given to Charles Lloyd as a person as well as a musician are at least as overwhelming as the presented archive material.
