 "Credit where credit is due" | 2009-10-12 |
| - Reviewed By rhefner |
Burns deserves credit for this monumental undertaking--one which hopefully, will bring an uninitiated audience into a deeper understanding of jazz.
All the critics of this series seem to think it should have been targeted to an audience of jazz experts. But Burns was trying to educate a mass audience.
People are whining because Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, and other post-modern players were left out. Too bad. Did those men make the contributions that Ellington or Armstrong made? I think not.
Others have said that the series is basically a mouthpiece for Marsalis and Crouch. I think both Marsalis and Crouch made intelligent statements and provided insightful analysis of the music.
Those of us who are really into jazz don't even need to watch this documentary. We have all done our homework. But for a mass audience, I think Burns did something significant and meaningful here.
I would have liked to have seen more coverage of Ahmad Jamal, Sun Ra, and dozens of other players and composers. But I don't mind. I'm just glad that a famous film maker did a comprehensive series about the music. The ignorant listening public needs to know about this distinctive American art form. |
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 "Burns' most-flawed work" | 2009-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1KY6YNK2D63MU |
I highly agree with several others on Amazon - much is left to be desired in this documentary. FIVE MINUTES were spent on Armstrong's "Hello, Dolly," (which has as much to do with Jazz as Britney Spears), while Zawinul, Pastorius and other giant figures were given no mention whatsoever. I believe that Burns felt comfortable with being W. Marsalis' "ventriloquist dummy..."
The good news is: There is plenty of room and time for someone else to produce a more inclusive and comprehensive history of this music. |
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| "Politically Correct and Remarkably Narrow" | 2009-04-06 |
| - Reviewed By User: A384D44ID5H9ON |
If they ever create an American Idol Show for jazz, Ken Burns and Wynton Marsalis should be front and center as judges. This documentary does about as much for jazz as "Idol" does for popular music.... it warps jazz from its free-flowing nature into a biased, personal opinion from Mr. Marsalis, who pontificates with the blessings of Mr. Burns, who in turn admittedly does not know much about jazz. Talk about riding on your name instead of hard work. This 19 hour letdown has time to feature the nostalgic but hokey "Hello Dolly" by Louie Armstrong, and ample time to discuss racism and drug addiction; but it does not have one minute to showcase the likes of George Gershwin, Bill Evans, Pat Metheny, or Chick Corea.
Bill Evans explained that jazz can be defined as composing a minute's music in a minute, a talent that Mozart, for example, exhitited when he improvised. Therefore, Bill points out, Mozart was often playing jazz 300 years ago. Perhaps this refreshing perspective is why Bill Evans, a modest jazz giant, a genius who is comparable to Lou Gehrig in basesball, is mentioned once in this 19 hour saga (and then only because he was a white pianist playing with Miles Davis). Wynton Marsalis, when compared to Bill Evans, is a bench warmer with a .230 batting average.
If Pat Metheny did nothing more than make his landmark "Pat Metheny Group" album in the mid-70's, he would deserve 10 minutes in a 19 hour documentary on jazz. Nope... no mention of him. But there's plenty of time of course to showcase Wynton Marsalis' lesser career.
The contribution of Tin Pan Alley composers (Gershwin, Arlen, Porter) in providing the hundreds of beautiful songs that are the foundation of so much of jazz is barely mentioned. Why are Gershwin songs such as "Fascinating Rhythm" not jazz but "Take the A Train" a jazz classic (I love the Duke too!)? Miles Davis recorded an entire album of music from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Miles also was a great fan of Bill Evans but none of that matters since Wynton is not.
Ken Burns wants you to believe, either out of laziness or arrogance, that the bible on jazz was handed from Marsalis to him to take down from the mountain top and give to us peasants. I have news for Ken.... most jazz fans or even people just interested in learning about it actually think for themselves. If you are new to jazz and have bought this product, please check out these other artists I have mentioned. Thanks for letting me communicate my thoughts.
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 "Highly slanted history of Jazz" | 2009-03-19 |
| - Reviewed By michaelbachman |
I've watched this twice now on PBS, and I'll give it two stars for production values and covering Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. It doesn't get any additional stars, as it virtually ignores too many pivotal jazz fiqures from the 50's to the present. Three episodes on swing is too much. Spend your money on cd's, the Jazz Icon series of live performances on DVD, the Jazz 101 book, the movie Round Midnight, or the Legends of Jazz DVD set instead.
It's not that I don't like Ken Burns either, as I bought the Civil War VHS set when it first was available in the early 90's and then the DVD set when it became available. Had Burns done as good of job on Jazz as he did on The Civil War, then I would have given Jazz five stars. |
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 "Jazz History" | 2009-03-14 |
| - Reviewed By ltopper314 |
This is a fun introduction to the history of jazz. This series is not the last word on jazz. It focuses alot on the "life and times" of jazz, but that is what the average viewer will enjoy. Ken Burns knows his audience.
For those people who are real jazz fans, there is plenty of more recorded material to listen to and books to read to further their knowledge and enjoyment. I agree that Wynton Marsalis is conservative in his approach. I would also agree that the series itself largely ignores the avante garde and fusion. I am okay with that. Most avante garde is largely unaccessible to most listeners. That is why it still involves a very small percentage of listeners. Fusion jazz mostly plays to a rock style rhythm which makes it more rock anyway.
Unfortunately for jazz as an art form, most jazz fans really are "historians" in their listening tastes and collection proclivities. This tends to make it more difficult for living jazz musicians that really want to do something new. Popular taste moved from swing and bebop to rock and roll because the development of jazz moved to more difficult music that demands more from its listeners than so many casual listers are willing to give. As jazz became less "danceable" and less "humable", it became less popular and less influential in popular taste. Jazz became less fun for the casual listener. |
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| "JAZZ - a historical view" | 2009-03-01 |
| - Reviewed By ngilic |
The scope of this fascinating documentary is wast; it can be defined as a rich historical look into jazz, with emphasis on earlier periods, with intense socio-cultural, economical and political comments. This said, I can very well understand why some disagree with the deemphasis on avant-garde and the huge emphasis on Louis Armstrong and swing era... (actually, I completely agree with Burns' and Marsalis' deemphasis on fusion).
There are some magnificent images and sounds, performances and testimonies here, all well directed and organized, often capturing the best /or too rarely seen/ performances by Armstrong, Goodman, Basie, Rushing, Davis, Parker and others. Actually, there's too much on swing clarinetist for my tastes - although I like both Goodman and Shaw...
This means that this is almost ideal historical introduction to jazz (although there are some mistakes - for instance, the narration lives the impression that Freddie Green came with Basie from Kansas City are, which is false).
Since I am mostly interested into "classical" and "early modern" jazz, this would draw 5 stars from me but... well... how should one put it? There's too much Marsalis in it!
Don't get me wrong - I'm a big admirer of Wynton's work but, since he was a senior consultant to Ken Burns, he should have restrained himself a bit (and even his brother Branford has a prominent role in some episodes)... In the end of the last episode Wynton is presented as a some sort of succesor to the elder giants of jazz /which is probably not wrong/, without giving enough tribute to Art Blakey and the trumpeters that preceded Wynton in The Jazz Messengers...
It would be prudent to restrain himself a bit, although he is an articulate and persuasive advocate of jazz (as he generally is)... But, since this was produced in 2000 it is a great pity the surviving participants of jazz development were underutilized (Doc Cheatham, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry...) or not interviewed at all (Hank Jones, Frank Wess, Snooky Young, Ron Carter, Ray Brown, Freddie Hubbard...).
Since Artie Shaw, for instance, was so well presented, it creates a disbalance. So, in spite of the great enjoyment this film gave me, I'm trying to be objective - only 4 stars. |
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