Afterthoughts on Ken Burn's Jazz

Now that Ken Burn's wonderful nineteen hour jazz feast has ended and we've had enough time to digest this gala offering, its time to reflect on the entire event. First off, there will probably never be anything of this magnitude offered on television relating to jazz again. Having previously seen the amazing documentaries that Burns put together on the Civil War and Baseball, we all did anticipate that his nineteen hours on jazz would prove the finishing sequel to his marvelous trilogy. For the most part, we were right.

Going into this project, Burns admitted that he knew next to nothing on the subject he was going to deal with. He surrounded himself with a group of jazz players, historians and critics to help give verisimilitude to this splendid endeavor. One of the questionable moves by Burns was putting the lion share of information coming directly from Wynton Marsalis. Although, a splendid musician, historian leader and teacher, some may question his strong views regarding the history of this American music. Marsalis expresses himself more than any one else throughout the documentary to inject his thoughts and ideas. The second most contributor had to be Gary Giddins, who was less animated than Marsalis but far more articulate.

The shows were broken down into ten, well documented, programs ranging from one and a half hours to almost two hours each. Burns is a master of putting together a story with the use of pictures, voice-overs, film clips and musical recordings. There's no doubt he conjured up a lot of new interest with this presentation and possibly brought some new jazz fans into the fold. I think most of us learned some new things on the music after watching the entire series.

Needless to say, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are probably the most important two figures that jazz has ever produced. These two geniuses should have dominated a good part of the documentary, which they did. My feelings are that too much of all the ten parts included more than enough material on Louis and the Duke. This is all fine and fitting for an event of these proportions, but since time is of the essence, by doing this, some are going to be left out. I think there were some glaring omissions that should have at least been mentioned. For example, not once during the nineteen hours did the name of Lenny Tristano come up. Certainly, a lot of the music that Lenny created was to lead up to and direct Miles Davis into the cool idiom. Woody Herman's first and second herds should have been given some space as well. Didn't Ralph Burns and Neal Hefti revolutionize the Swing era with charts like Apple Honey, Early Autumn and Northwest Passage? Too much was focused on Benny Goodman leaving no time for Herman or Kenton, for that matter. What about the array of innovating musicians that went through that band: Flip Phillips, Dave Tough, Chubby Jackson and Bill Harris? Not one word about them. The only mention of the second herd was the fact that many of the players were infected by bad drug habits. No words on the music or the musicians. What about the Four Brothers sound? Didn't that deserve a quick mention as well. The only allusion to Stan Getz was that he once held up a drug store to support his drug habit. I mean, come on. I know everyone, including God himself, owes a debt to Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. But others have followed, copied and created something new from all of that. I would have been grateful if Burns could have extended five minutes of his nineteen hours just to mention these important moments in jazz.

Those are just a few minor oversights that I had to get off my chest. No doubt, other jazz fans probably have there gripe list as well. This is not to be overly critical of such a marvelous body of work. If the experts guiding Burns were a bit more careful, this information should not have slipped through the cracks. Again, we in the jazz community owe a great debt of gratitude to Burns and his collaborators for bringing us this great television event at a time when we are suddenly immersed in real television events like Survivors. We wont see anything quite like it in this country ever. So from the bottom of my heart I say, thank you Ken Burns.

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