Ken Burns' Jazz on PBS

It's Swing Time! Ken Burns' Jazz on PBS

by Brian Phillips

Jazz, like poetry, is music of the heart. It is an attempt to musically express the emotions at the heart of human existence. From the high C’s of Louis Armstrong and the intense rhythms of Herbie Hancock, to the blues rifts of Billie Holiday and the sad melodies of John Coltrane, hearing and understanding Jazz and its great history is to experience life: its elation, its despair, its simplicity, and its ever-changing nature. We find in jazz the most human of all character traits: improvisation. The ability to create spontaneously is humanity’s greatest gift. Jazz celebrates this gift and puts it up on a pedestal for all to see or, more appropriately, to hear.

The story of Jazz, though diverse, is little more than a century old. But the road traveled has been exciting and colorful. Finding its roots in minstrelsy, the music once known as "Jass" grew out of the brothels and street corners of the culturally diverse city of New Orleans, later expanding west to Kansas City and Chicago and eventually found a second home in the Big Apple. Its 100-plus year history is filled with eccentric personalities, shady locales, and suspense-filled plots. The stories of the somewhat eccentric Jelly Roll Morton and the drug-addicted Charlie Parker have already found their way onto biography shelves. The story of the Cotton Club, Harlem’s grand dance club, has been told. And the magic of Louis Armstrong and his great horn have been well documented. But, a grander history, one that incorporates all of these individual tales and places them in their grander context within the landscape of the Jazz phenomena and American culture, is about to be told.

Leave it to Ken Burns, the great documentary filmmaker, to take on the task of telling the story. Perhaps there is no one better suited to tell this saga of America and its one true art form. Burns grabbed national attention in 1990 when he produced and directed The Civil War, a nine-part documentary of American’s darkest and bloodiest years. And then, after receiving critical acclaim for his nine-part history of American greatest sport, Baseball, he focused his energies on American Biography, producing a series of two-part films on such influential individuals as Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas Jefferson.

Burns has found his niche: American history. But what sets Burns apart from traditional textbook analysis, classroom study, and other attempts to tell American history, which to many may seem dry and at times uninteresting, are two things: his passion and his attention to individuals.

Burns willingness to spend large chunks of his life devoted to the researching and making of a film is testament to his willingness to immerse himself in that subject. It took him close to six years to compile the research, write the book, with collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward, who also co-wrote both The Civil War and Baseball volumes, and edit the film. Without a passion for the subject, this sort of commitment would be difficult. But Burns has fallen in love with Jazz. In his introduction to the book Burns writes, "When I began the project, I had perhaps two jazz records in my fairly large music collection. Today, I can’t find all the others. I listen to jazz all the time — old and new, straight ahead and avant-garde and fusion, swing and bop and cool. I play it day and night, in the car, as I go to bed, as I write now, its sophisticated rhythms and elegant lines simply medicine for me." His passion for his subject is evident in every frame, every page, and every song selected for the CD box set, Ken Burns Jazz: The Story of America’s Music.

Burns’ correct assumption is that facts, as facts, are meaningless. What makes historical information fascinating and germane is the story. Burns tirelessly conducts interview upon interview, searching for the story, the perspective that allows each event to ring true and every fact to merit significance. During the course of making Jazz, Burns filmed nearly 100 interviews, 75 of which appear in the course of the 10-part documentary. What Burns does through interviews, photographic and video montage, voice over narrative and soundtrack is create more than a name and date history; he has created a grand epic, filled with exotic locales, heroes, and enemies, and ultimately a message. Documentary as literature.

Combine the great stories, the great personalities, include at least one larger-than-life presence, an incredible eye for detail, and an unstoppable passion for his subject matter and you will begin to understand why Ken Burns has garnered the support of critics and grabbed the attention of the American people. Jazz should prove no exception. Ken Burns and his team, including Emmy Award winning producer Lynn Novack, who also teamed-up with Burns on The Civil War and Baseball, have compiled a multi-media masterpiece.

Jazz is not only a 10-part, 19-hour documentary. It is that, but it is also a 490-page companion volume filled with beautiful and rare photos. Jazz: A History of America’s Music, incorporates essays on the historical and cultural value of America’s truest art form with a collection of transcripted interviews and a wealth of information that is not included in the documentary.

And what would a history of a particular musical tradition be without a collection of the music itself? The first release, The Best of Ken Burns’ Jazz, is a collection of 20 of the best songs from the documentary. The second, mentioned earlier, is a five CD box set that includes most of the songs found within the 10 parts, close to 100 songs. In addition, the box set includes liner notes for each and every song, plus some biographical and background information. The last and most extensive offering is a 22 CD collection, which you can purchase individually.

The last element of the Jazz experience is an online companion. The PBS website, found at pbs.org/jazz/ is a very hip cyber-journey that includes a wealth of information. The content of this site can serve as an introduction to the series, but it can also serve a more rudimentary purpose: an introduction to jazz in general, with essays, stylistic definitions, and transcripts of all of the interviews made during the making of the film. Also included on the Jazz site is a Jazz Kids section. But perhaps the coolest attraction of the site is a link to a virtual Piano, where you can try to create your own rifts and improvise the next great bee-bop melody. It is an Internet journey that combined with the documentary, the book, and the music creates a complete and comprehensive picture of the history and experience that is Jazz.

Put on your dancing shoes and your flappers, Jazz airs Monday January 8 and runs through the end of the month.