“Sweet Love, Bitter”, by Herbert Danska

“Sweet Love, Bitter” (1967, USA) Directed by Herbert Danska
Screenplay by Danska, Lewis Jacobs
Based on the novel “Night Song” by John A. Williams
Music by Mal Waldron
With Dick Gregory • Robert Hooks • Don Murray • Diane Varsi

A rediscovered gem of 1960s independent cinema, introduced by director Danska on May 12. In a harrowing, thinly disguised homage to Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, radical comedian Gregory plays the charismatic Richie “Eagle” Stokes, an alto saxophonist done in by racism, drugs, and self-destructiveness. Waldron, who played with Charles Mingus and Max Roach in the 1950’s and was Billie Holiday‘s regular pianist during her last years, suffered a nervous breakdown in 1963, the same year in which he scored Shirley Clarke‘s The Cool World. His music for Sweet Love, Bitter, written not long after this tortured period, is filled with dark, spare sonorities.