De laatste sessie

Last date is a portrait of the innovative jazz musician Eric Dolphy. The film consists of six chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue that associatively reconstruct the last months of Dolphy's life. The leitmotif of the film is a registration of Dolphy's final tour in his life. The tour was in the Netherlands, where he played together with the Dutch musicians Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink and Jacques Schols. It had an enormous effect on the young percussionist Han Bennink, who gave a very personal account of the tour in his diary. Dolphy's final tour is reconstructed on the basis of testimony of people involved. 26 years later they meet in a radio studio where the last night of the tour took place. The music was recorded to be broadcasted at a later date, apiece of good luck, because in those days these kinds of sessions were normally broadcasted live, without being recorded. In this way it was possible to make a record of this final session, Last Date, which was released a year later and highly appreciated by the critics. The jazz photographer Ton van Wageningen made photographs during the concert. The film uses these photographs intensively. Last Date consists of six pieces, four of which were composed by Dolphy. The titles are used for the six episodes of the documentary: 'Epistrophy', 'South Street Exit', 'The Madrig Speaks', 'The Panther Walks', 'Hypochristmutreefuzz', 'You Don't Know What Love Is' and 'Miss Ann'. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)