X-From_: thedepths at earthlink.net Sat Jan 20 08:08:14 2001 Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 05:19:17 -0800 From: JEREMY MAGE <thedepths at earthlink.net> Reply-To: thedepths at earthlink.net X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: dhenwood at panix.com Subject: Jazz
[Hi Doug! Hope you're well. John Mage drew my attention to the Jazz discussion on your list and suggested I might have two cents worth...] I am making my living playing piano in the SF Bay Area My principle objection to the parts of the series that I saw is how much screen time critics and historians are getting...it seems to me that these folks are fantastic for writing books and articles, but in the film medium, why not use primary sources?
The highlights of the episode that I saw about Louis Armstrong were the minute or so where interview footage of him was actually shown. That represented a fraction of the screen time given to interviews with people talking about him. There must be hours of Louie interview footage and audio...I'd love to have more of a sense of his description of what he was doing, and why it mattered.
Brings to mind the flick "A Great day in Harlem" in which the white photographer's assistant got more screen time than 90% of the black musicians who were the subject of this legendary photo...and yet the moments when the musicians themselves were on screen were certainly the most vital and informative. Jeremy Mage