Ken Burns' "Jazz" (2001)

Jazz is simply too large a subject and too diverse an art form for one documentary to cover in one documentary. Ken Burns' Jazz could have included another five episodes and he'd still come up short because this was - as all Burns work is - a documentary intended for a mass audience. It's more Intro to Jazz than Jazz, really. This explains Burns' focus on artists he not only considers key figures in jazz but who would be more familiar to the casually interested viewer - Ellington, Armstrong, Miles, Coltrane, Holliday, Bird.

The archival footage is worth watching on its own merits - vintage Pops, Bird, Dizzy, and Duke - but the less-than-insightful commentary seems painfully obvious at times, even condescending. I respect and admire Sonny Rollins, but was his playing "Easter Bonnet" on Easter a worthy example of his genius? Burns also gives Wynton Marsalis too much room to pontificate - he adds some perspective and analysis (particularly about Monk) but I'd much rather have heard Nat Hentoff instead...because he was there, you know?

I'll give Burns this - the man tried.

 

I don't think he tried to strike the proper balance and contextual framework to pique viewer interest by highlighting the golden age of jazz. Done right, that could have been completely fascinating and captivating, far beyond what Burns achieved. It seems to me he reached out to the pushiest people in jazz and took the path of least resistance to appease them. You are never going to create something of value by herding cats like that. You need to have a solid vision of what you want to produce going in, and use certain experts' strengths to help you achieve that. My impression is that Burns didn't go into it like that.

 

He didn't, because he didn't have a specific vision. As has already been mentioned in this thread, I think, was that Burns approached this documentary more like a project manager than as an author. He didn't have significant independent knowledge of jazz - he relied on "subject matter experts" for that.

 

I think the above sums it up. He’s not making these for the jazz connoisseur but for those who know a lot less. This is the problem with all his series. After awhile they all seem the same. I’m sure his Country series (which I have no interest in) is the same as the Jazz one. Just a different genre and different performers.

As an aside his WWII doc was as boring as hell.

 

I don't see how this answers the question of why so much depth was given to a certain era and certain performers. Even people who don't know anything could probably relate more to bebop and post-bebop jazz than pre-bebop stuff, presuming they're under 90 years old. People who don't know much about jazz would probably enjoy more coverage for Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock than the deep dive into the earlier stuff.

 

Although I'm a big Bill Evans fan, most people who have a slight interest in jazz will know about the earlier people than the later ones and it's these people he's trying to reach. I don't think people would have much interest in bebop but swing -- it's melodic -- they can relate to that.

 

What annoyed me was that they only dealt with Cab Calloway very briefly, and only to make him look like a jerk!

 

The guy who told the “Easter Bonnet” anecdote was by far the worst talking head in the whole series.

 

I don't know that I necessarily blame Ken Burns, but it's an absolute crime that all of jazz after 1960 was only given 2 hours (out of 19 hours total), and half of that (1 hour) was a bunch of random live (or live in the studio) performance footage, with some more (then) "current" jazz musicians giving their thoughts on what jazz means, to them, or what it should mean to the world.

So that means that as far as the more "historical" coverage of jazz, there was quite literally ONE HOUR devoted to everything that's happened in jazz since 1960 (and 4-6 minutes of that was spent on Ellington's and Louis Armstrong's funerals!).

So it is an absolute crime that Jazz really only told barely much more than half the story of Jazz. I'm don't completely blame Ken Burns, but it's a crime none the less.

I don't know that Wynton and Stanley Crouch hijacked the entire thing, but their input was WAY, WAY, WAY too much. And, far as I'm concerned, their brand of extreme "jazz conservatism" really should have relegated them to just being 2 of 40 talking heads in the film, rather than 2 of the biggest ones in the whole thing.

To hear them tell it, "jazz got weird in the 60's, but thank goodness those young lions came back around in the 80's to save it from itself". Cuz, "weird jazz" isn't even jazz at all -- according to them.

There's an entire 6-hour documentary just waiting to be done on jazz since 1960 -- 6 hours MINIMUM.

How in the hell could you do 19 hours of jazz, and never mention Blue Note Records? Or anyone one Blue Note? (other than a couple of Miles' sidemen).

Not suggesting Blue Note was the end-all, and be-all of jazz -- but to completely ignore the output of that label all through the 60's, and all the different style that were still growing and developing all through the 60's -- and later in the 70's (through other independent labels) -- is just rewriting history, by omitting half the story.

And it's not like they didn't license (some) tracks from Blue Note for their expansive "Ken Burns Jazz" CD series. But the documentary just ignored practically all of that, save for a tiny bit of 50's stuff on Blue Note (I think there's some cursory mention when discussing Monk, and the Jazz Messengers, maybe -- or just Monk).

It's been 15 years since I've seen any of it, so admittedly my memory is a little foggy.

Still (eventually), PBS really needs to do right by the entire medium of jazz by producing some overarching jazz history that STARTS in 1960 (with maybe an hour of pre-1960 coverage to set things up). And then 5 hours minimum on jazz since 1960 -- for a total of 6 hours. Or AT LEAST 4 hours, i.e. what Ken Burns should have done -- AT A MINIMUM -- when producing the original series.

As a collogue of mine said, it'd be like trying to do a 19-hour documentary on the entire history of FILM, and then spending an hour on film-developments in the 1960's, and then 5 minutes on the 1970's, and calling it a day.

Unthinkable.

 

I think I saw that -- three sets of Dewey Redman at One Step Down.

Agree with almost all your comments.

 

You were the target audience, not some SHTV audiophile who has 3 copies of every Eric Dolphy album. This series tells about when jazz was America's music, and it's about the times and the musicians and the stories that they inspired. It never was about the music itself. At least that's the way I see it. So people who call it incomplete are correct, but they're also missing the point of the series as a whole.

Jazz is Jazz 101. Jazz 201 is an independent study course.

 

Just started watching Jazz now. I would like to see a "Jazzumentary" that would cover the 1950's - 1970's in-depth. Is there any out there??
Thank you!

 

I thought it was great.PBS is currently replaying it in weekly episodes so .I am PVRing it.

 

There is none that I know of. However, Imagine The Sound is an excellent movie about some of the early pioneers of free jazz. Currently streaming on Criterion Channel. Also Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser by Charlotte Zwerin, Sonny Rollins G-Man by Robert Mugge, Ornette: Made In America by Shirley Clarke, and Space Is The Place by John Coney, about Sun Ra. The latter two also streaming now on Criterion Channel.