 "Excellent historical compilation." | 2009-07-14 |
| - Reviewed By User: A25S6TOM7WZV2T |
| If you are new to jazz or just looking for a survey of its history, this is an excellent compilation of recordings and companion book with a history of the music and its musicians. Highly recommended. |
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 "Maybe Ken's mom was a jazz fan....?" | 2009-07-14 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3ES4NIC7R8QZ3 |
I admit that I've watched and enjoyed some of this set. However, it is terribly nostagic and fails to emphasize the true significance of any of the artists. I question how much Ken Burn's even likes jazz...
Most notably, though I am not a huge fan myself, Duke Ellington should have been pedistaled to the same heights that Mozart, Bach, Ravi Shankar or The Beatles typically are.
Similarly, the films failed to recognize much of the social and philosophical significance of the music so commonly discussed by the artists themselves.
In the end (which comes a lot sooner than expected), if you exclude the last couple of discs and call the film Jazz: The Early Years I'd probably recommend it. Unfortunately, it was kind of like a history of Western European music that fails to mention anything past Beethoven. |
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 "Mixed feelings" | 2009-04-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1G2PVJ6K6U24M |
I bought this set despite my distaste for the marketing strategy used that features Ken Burns name more prominently than the series artists. I wonder what Miles or Bird would think of their music being sold as "Ken Burns Jazz"? To anyone reading this who watched his PBS series: notice a little irony here?
Having got that off my chest, let me say that I'm still glad I bought this set after all. Although the set offers only a superficial coverage of any artist or era, taken as a whole the set partially compensates for this in its breadth. Listening to the five disk set straight through provides a means to witness the development of this great music both chronologically and chromatically; a century of development boiled down to five hours of listening. The experience was memorable for me, a long time jazz fan with listening habits usually more tightly focused on particular eras and sub-genres.
Final note: the last disk (#5) is responsible for about 40 years of music history and, not surprisingly, does an unsatisfactory job of it. Fans of 1970's jazz will be particularly disappointed. |
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| "Maybe for someone who knows nothing about jazz " | 2009-01-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: AUGLGOAG2L8CB |
As a seasoned jazz listener, this is a fairly disappointing boxed set. It vastly overemphasizes the early decades, big-band, and dance music to the exclusion of the more core group-improvisatory material. The discs run in roughly chronological order and it takes until the last disc to get out of the sixties!
If you are feeling nostalgic for the music of the 20s, 30s and 40s, or know nothing about jazz and want to start somewhere, I guess this isn't terrible..many of these recordings are perfectly fine and the musicians perfectly respectable. If you're thinking of getting this for someone who actually knows something about jazz, do them a favor and avoid this. They'd be much better off with 2-3 cd's that came out in the last year than a smattering of backfill that probably substantially overlaps cd's they bought years ago because they thought they should have some of X but never listened to more than once or twice. |
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 "Yet Another Box Set That Tries Do Everything" | 2009-01-02 |
| - Reviewed By ejfan19 |
Let me just say that I'm not too impressed with the series "Ken Burns' Jazz." It was a pretty hack job and really didn't cover all the bases in my opinion. To me, Burns is a very misguided figure and hasn't really done the research about jazz, but I'll save that argument for another time. The music on this box set, while most of it is indeed great and timeless, it fails to capture the true essence of this music I think. I think if anyone is interested in jazz music should start with Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue" recording and go from there. Being interested in jazz has more to do with passion in my experience. Casual jazz listeners don't really understand the music, because if they did, then they wouldn't have done such a terrible job of putting together such a collection. Jazz cannot be marketed and that's the problem with these record companies. Jazz doesn't need promotion, you either "get it" or you don't. I wouldn't waste my money or time on this box set.
Some obvious omissions: Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver, Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan, Jim Hall, Bobby Hutcherson, etc. |
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| "Not the whole story, but a good start" | 2008-02-25 |
| - Reviewed By highly_original |
When I discussed the Ric Burns documentary about the old West with an Amerindian acquaintance, I complained that the film concentrated on the Lakota, to the exclusion of other peoples. My friend answered that, as the Lakota was the best known native American culture, that was a good place to start, and the audience would then move on to learn about other parts of the story.
I suppose the same is true of the documentary by Ric's brother Ken Burns, on the history of Jazz, on which this box set is based. It is heavy on Louis Armstrong and on the Big Band sound of the Swing era - probably the Jazz best known to the general public - but light in other areas, including the many, varied strands of Jazz in the last 30 years or so. There is a whole series of albums in the Ken Burns Jazz Collection, featuring individual artists, for those who want to pursue the story and start to fill in the gaps.
It is easy to list regrettable omissions from this set (and many reviewers have done so) and just as easy to point out how impossible it is to do full justice to a century of music that had multiple sources and spread rapidly to a plethora of sub-genres (and many reviewers have done that too). The omission of Erroll Garner is one that struck me, especially ironic as the booklet accompanying this set has his name displayed on the cover! The British Trad Jazz that took hold in the early 50s and is still going strong (Chris Barber, Kenny Ball and their followers) is another indispensible part of Jazz history that finds no place in this collection. I realize that this is specifically titled the story of American music, but Django Reinhardt gets a look in, as does some forgettable French rapper.
But this collection of 94 tracks, featuring recordings from 1917 to 1995, attractively packaged and with good notes, remains a great introduction to Jazz. In fact, now that the price has come down so much, it can be recommended for every music fan.
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