>In a promo for the series Burns refers to Louis Armstrong as
>"unquestionably the greatest musician of the 20th century." (I think I got
>the quote right.)
>
>I'm curious as to whether this position has become conventional wisdom
>among the cross section of the intelligentia represented here.
Burns has been reading from the Village Voice-Rolling Stone school of criticism: the "greatest" musician is the most popular, the most-known, one. The later generation of musicians (Monk, Bird, Mingus, Coleman, Coltrane, et. al.), the ones who, to put it baldly, were concerned with exploring jazz's artistic possibilities, were inspired by Ellington, not Armstrong. There's more, a lot more, in Ellington than just great blowing.
Dennis Perrin wrote:
>Coltrane
>was a true innovator who kept pushing and breaking the form. "The Father And
>The Son And The Holy Ghost" is as mad an arrangement as I've ever heard.
>Perhaps it will be understood by 2057.
Ah yes, Meditations. I had a "theory" for awhile that Meditations was Coltrane's nod to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but I've forgotten now why I think that.
I am a jazz fanatic (which is kind of an understatement), and I think Burns's documentary is pretty weak. Of course I have some jazz-nerd quibbles (there's no mention of Red Norvo, Benny Carter, and many other great musicians; the last forty years, including the glorious 60's and 70's, are totally glossed over; jazz did not begin exclusively in New Orleans, as Burns claims; etc.). But the main problem with Burns's documentary is, as JF Noonan said, his lameass style. I don't have time to go into it right now, so I am appending something I posted last week to another list (a post that's also not adequate).
Eric
[someone] wrote:
>Well, I've just watched the first instalment in the series. It's pretty
>much ewhat I expected. Some nice music, great still photos, interesting
>film clips, a good deal of musical history.
It's pretty much what I expected too: the languid pace, the slow pans of still photographs, the self-important and overly dramatic narration, and the reliance on anecdotes (most of them probably Apocryphal) to serve as historical and musical analysis. In other words, it's in the same style as Baseball and The Civil War. You'd think with a subject that's noted for it's motion, vibrancy, and lack of pretension Burns would make his film reflect that. But I guess GM, Time Warner, etc., want the Ken Burns they know.
>Many on this list feel strongly that black history equals jazz history, that
>the two are intertwined. That certainly is a basic premise of the first
>episode, isn't it? I'm sorry the States had slavery, Jim Crow laws and
>such, but that was long before many of us were born. Since I am not an
>American, I don't share that history, and even though I'm white, I don't
>feel guilty about your culture. It's time to get over your national angst
>or anger. And quit hitting me over the head with your racial politics,
>please. Put it behind you, Mr. Burns and Mr. Marsalis. It's boring and
>self-indulgent, and I daresay the rest of the world couldn't care less.
The problem with both Burns's and Marsalis's racial politics is not that they are too radical but that they aren't radical enough. Burns's presentation of racism is very soothing to the audience: By why of showing our racist past, the film mentions Jim Crow and Plessey v. Ferguson, two landmarks in the history of racism in the US readily known to public-television audiences from their grade-school days, thus flattering viewers into thinking they know the depths of this "racism thing." But the actual conditions, the true deprivation and misery that racism caused (and continues to cause), go unstated and unexplored, and the anger and frustration that blacks felt is completely sanitized of anything confrontational and uncomfortable. What we've gotten in episode 1 of Jazz is an expression of liberal white guilt: admitting that there were wrongs but not the extent of them; assuring us that everything is okay because black folk found their redemption in the music.
Don't get me wrong: I don't think Burns should dwell on racism (though a frank admission of it would be nice) or politics. But one of the most amazing things to me about jazz music is how such beautiful music was created out of utter oppression. How did Duke overcome his anger and the second-class treatment he was afforded to compose something as gorgeous as "Concerto for Cootie" (to name the song that's playing on my stereo at the moment)? How did he compose Black, Brown, and Beige, a piece that presents some anger but isn't subsumed by it? So far, outside of Marsalis's fatuous comment about the plantation being a place of improvisation, Burns hasn't shown any interest in this question. He's more interested in spouting cliche after cliche about how "Jazz is America," "Jazz is improvisation," and lot of other "Jazz is..."-isms.