| Jazz music gets a huge shot in the arm from filmmaker Ken Burns and specifically his massive 10-part PBS-TV series titled simply, Jazz. A trilogy within a trilogy, at the macro level it is the third PBS series produced by Ken Burns on American life, the first two being The Civil War (1990) and Baseball (1994). At the micro level this project has three segments – the TV series (which began January 8 and runs through the end of the month, to be repeated in February and March, and inevitably become available on video); a 512-page companion book with 500 illustrations; and a three-part CD component (single CD sampler, five-CD box set, and 22 individual artist CDs).
The TV series takes a sociological view of the music and its reflection of American society, "divided by war, segregated by race, and united through swing and dance." Burns himself describes jazz as a "precise prism through which so much of American history can be seen." Throughout, Jazz is the story of race and race relations in the United States.
In looking at the book and CD set, and in perusing material written about the TV series, several musings come to mind. First of all, the TV series will be watched by more than 40 million viewers (if it receives the same attention as the previous two Burns documentary series) and that will give much-needed attention to the music. Secondly, the series has already stimulated much controversy among jazz historians, critics, scholars, writers and researchers. Thirdly, and sadly, generalists wrote the material, not jazz people. Fourthly, Burns's choice of advisers is questionable.
The best commentators on jazz today are musicians who are also researchers and writers – people like Lewis Porter and Scott DeVeaux, who in recent years have written important books on John Coltrane and bebop, respectively – they are notable by their absence here. Instead, non-musician writers like Gary Giddins and Stanley Crouch are prominent. To Burns’s credit, Loren Schoenberg (who was in Calgary recently directing the Smithsonian Ellington orchestra) and Dan Morgenstern (director of the Institute of Jazz Studies) were included as advisers.
Whatever the critical opinion, this is a landmark series in jazz historiography and will receive wide dissemination, in part through distribution to 75,000 American schools by series sponsor General Motors. Rightly or wrongly, Burns's series will have a major effect on how jazz is perceived for decades to come.
In terms of impact, perhaps the closest comparable event was the release of the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz (SCCJ) in 1973 by Martin Williams, revised and reissued over the years and now available as a boxed five CD set and booklet. This has been a standard teaching and reference tool for the music ever since its publication. In that the Burns is a "triple whammy," and that a condensed version of the PBS series will be issued for classroom use, its influence will doubtless be even greater.
The Burns CD box set (which miraculously brought giants Verve and Columbia together) is better than the SCCJ one because the music in the Burns set is more inclusive. Where Williams chose to exclude the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (the first jazz band to record) and John Coltrane, the Burns set includes those and more. Although purists will squirm, Burns includes Grover Washington's "Mister Magic" and Louis Armstrong's "Hello Dolly." The inclusion of these works is reflective of their historical presence and perception in the public eye as jazz music.
One of the chief criticisms of the series is that it is short on events after 1960. While some of the episodes of the TV special are devoted to a four- or five-year period, the last 40 years have been relegated to a single final episode. As a result, jazz-rock fusion and the avant-garde have been given short shrift.
An example of Burns's errant focus is the treatment of Coltrane. On page 340 of the book, the innovations of Coltrane's composition and recording of Giant Steps is summed up in a single sentence. This is a preposterous simplification in a serious examination of jazz.
In Whitney Balliett’s recent review of the Burns series in The New Yorker, his main criticism can be discerned in two sentences: "It soon becomes clear that the heroes of Jazz are Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman and Miles Davis. Armstrong and Ellington are, in effect, sainted." He bemoans the fact that giving so much space to five figures leaves only enough for the mere mention of some of the key players, among whom he names Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Earl Hines, Bud Powell and Bill Evans. Balliett also lists those who were completely ignored, including Big Sid Catlett, Nat Cole and Pee Wee Russell, among others, and notes some peculiar omissions on the soundtrack, like Artie Shaw's "Stardust" (!) and Bird's great "Parker's Mood."
In the current Atlantic Monthly, Francis Davis sums it up succinctly when he says, "The new Ken Burns series on jazz is good television but sketchy history." It is inevitable that non-jazz people like Ken Burns and co-writer Geoffrey C. Ward will present a flawed document with their Jazz trilogy, but its high-profile presentation to the public will still be a very positive development for the music. |
