February 2001

Wild Group Action!
Our Take on Ken Burn's Jazz

Lucky
So the Evil Robots staff is going to bash the Ken Burns Jazz Special. They do not like it, I do. I am doing this to be different.

Most people had a problem with Winton Marsalis from the get go. I agree that his presence was a bit, ummm, often, but the man is smart, and a hell of a horn player. And he knows his place in the jazz world, and who is better than he is. (Namely Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis among others)

For all his presence, good or bad, in a show about jazz, Winton was the only guy smart enough to bring his goddamn horn to the gig. You can't get that down on a guy who actually brings a horn to a show about jazz. And where that crazy bird-looking white guy just be-bopping his way through a chord progression, Marsalis was actually playing them. Plus he was man enough to admit that he could not hit the high notes that Louis Armstrong did.

Then there was his brother, Branford. I thought Branford was awesome. The show had him on right after a guy was holding out that before you had to listen to his "avante garde" jazz, you had to learn about what you were hearing. Branford actually said that type of thinking was total BS. Learning and appreciating are two different things and he made that perfectly clear.

Ken Burns also had Gary Giddins. I like Gary Giddins. Giddins had interesting things to say, and said them well. He made me like music critics, who for most part, I despise. I am my own music critic, and I am all I need. However, I will take Giddins, too.

Ken Burns defined his jazz and stuck to it. That is why the series was called Ken Burns' Jazz. It is his view of the music, not a history of the music. Burns is doing his thing, not what you want him to do. If something is missing, go make your own series.

Magic Dave
What about the evolution of things? Let taste and inspiration lead the way. If people will listen to hip-hop-jazz, then let them. Is it Jazz any longer? I think we have to work with new or sub-genres rather than say "Jazz" for everything. What was Charles Mingus? He had that swing feel, but the flexibility with time-feel and the fact that his compositions reacted to the sound environment around him clearly separate him from a Count Basie- style swing band. Mingus had a couple of tunes where the horns imitated car horns. It sounds just like a city street. There is another where there is screaming and yelling along with the music to express suffering and outrage.

Also, isn't there more to jazz than the KB greats? The briefly mentioned Miles Davis quintet of the early 60's stretched the bounds of standard jazz without utterly obliterating it like Ornette Coleman sometimes did. And the quintet did it as a result of five incredible players reacting to each other within a loose framework of the form. We didn't even get to hear any example of what they were doing. We just have to take the words of the commentators that it was something special. Aren't examples the real teaching tool- not just the explanation, but the experience.

And I'm reminded of something that a woman jazz violin player said she did- I don't remember her name. She conducts clinics before some concerts to instruct the average listener on how to listen to jazz- about the form of the tune and how a soloist will elaborate the melody in a solo and create new melodies- all over the same form and chords. Why didn't Ken help the listener to understand the music and what it's about? It isn't about the people themselves and about the middle-class house in New York. Why didn't he tell us just what those artists were willing to die for? It isn't the fact that there was such total dedication- this is an effect of the power that music has. We need to understand its power for it to mean anything to us.

Another thing that has been floating around this school is the few number of musicians that played with these guys that are still around. Herbie Hancock was on once and there are many more people like Jackie Mclean and Milt Hinton that are still with us who could shed some light on what really happened- the living experience of it. What Winton told us we can find out at the library. He is articulate, but he didn't live it. The people who were there every day working with -fill in a musician's name- have much more to say that Winton ever could, even in a single sentence.

Godzilla
The days leading up to the premier of Ken Burns' Jazz series on PBS were full of anticipation. I had been looking forward to seeing all nineteen and a half hours of it. I watched it an enjoyed it. Still, I was more disappointed than I could have imagined I would have been at the conclusion.

Why was I disappointed? Because I thought that the entire series was fairly narrow. A lot was left out. I must note that it is my job as an obnoxious elitist snob to poo-poo just about everything- especially anything aimed at the masses. It's just what I do. But my complaints are not motivated by that. I am not going to pretend that I am so much better than Ken Burns because I know all about Pharaoh Sanders and Idrus Mohammed. That's not the point. The point is that if you are going to spend more than 19 hours talking about something, then you can really afford to spend more than 2 hours talking about the last 40 years.

I was sorely disappointed than almost everything in Jazz since John Coltrane was brushed under the carpet. I think that's fairly shameful. The excuse given was that this was a historical film and than it's impossible to measure the historical impact of such recent doings. What do I say to that? Bullshit! At the very least, more could have been discussed about the influence of the previous on the current.

There is more to the history of Jazz than Louis Armstrong and Duke Elington. I love both of them and they are critical to the evolution of Jazz, and in turn American music- but I feel that more time could have been spend on more musicians.

It is true that this was a historical film. But I tend to think that this was used as an excuse to just focus on a few mainstream musicians. And it was a beautiful film. Burns did a great job directing it. The sheer amount of the photographs used was staggering. It was a beautiful thing to watch. And to hear. But most of all, I think this film was a fantastic way to introduce a lot of people to the music of jazz who may have otherwise never heard much of it. But wouldn't it have been even better if these people got to hear a whole lot more?

Additionally, I think that Burns did an amazing job illustrating how critically tied the music was tied to history. White America may have come to accept Black America more through the music of Jazz, and the popular music that Jazz so obviously influenced in the following decades and maybe centuries, than anything else. At least initially. Jazz has literally made Whitey shut up and listen to the voices of the oppressed. Burns did an amazing job portraying just that.

However, for some reason Mr. Burns omitted almost the entirety of Latin-flavored jazz. What's up with that? Has he no taste for salsa?

But as far as the films main point- that jazz is essentially American- I can hardly disagree with that. I think it's absolutely true. I don't think that it's the only art that America has created on our own like the film puts forth, but whatever. That's a minor disagreement. This series absolutely demonstrated that Jazz is utterly American. I just think it would have that much more better if Burns had explored that further and went on to show how jazz influenced culture and music throughout the world since the beginning of the 20th Century. Including the last 40 years.

Grandpa
Ken Burns' Jazz? Let's call it Jazz: Behind the Music. Seriously, no one network can gloss over history like VH1, but Ken tried very hard to keep up with their high standards. Sure, Ken is a real documentarian-guy, but he can't fool me. I know thin, and his history is thin.

While I am not as much of a Mr. Smarty Pants Savior as Mr. Marsalis, I am smart enough to know when someone teaches one fourth of the history of Jazz in one tenth of the series.

Bigfoot
Ken Burns told me nearly nothing about jazz. Sure there were a few interesting tidbits, a name here & there that I hadn't heard, but that is purely because I only listen to the music. I don't try to learn about it. I don't follow artists unless it happens accidentally. And I don't pay attention to song titles. It seems like I should have been Burns' prime target of the series since he mentioned so little about jazz in the episodes I watched. Went into so little detail & just dropped the subject when the TV market was predicted to take a yawn break. History should not be about the TV market. Especially history on PBS. Just when I thought I'd hear something about an innovation or inspiration, the plug was pulled. Too avant garde for PBS viewers to handle. Has Ken Burns ever watched PBS before? Has he ever probed the minds of people who sit to watch a super-sized special? In exchange for our time, we want content. Without the incessant bwee-da-dee-deet-dooo's of Marsalis, the series would have been only an hour long.