Ken Burns' Jazz: Jazz 101 and Beyond

Ken Burns' Jazz 10-part documentary, currently airing on PBS stations nationwide, has kept me glued to my seat for the each of the entire 2- to 1 1/2-hour episodes. As a jazz collector since I was 15 years old (nearly 30 years), I recommend the series for both long time jazz enthusiasts, or simply anyone who loves music of any kind.

America's True, Original Musical Art Form

Each of the six episodes of Burns' Jazz that I've seen so far have been well worth listening to for the historical photos and vintage jazz performances alone. He shows them more or less in chronological order, starting with the "birth" of jazz in early 1900s New Orleans, occasionally interjecting glimpses into the future of legends like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and others who contributed so strongly to the progress of the art form and evolution of jazz.

In a televised interview, Burns said he had never studied jazz in-depth, and that he had never known about the tremendous influence of Louis Armstrong on so many early jazz musicians, both black and white. By the time you've seen the first three or four segments, you'll know.

As each episode outlines the early years and contributions of Armstrong, Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jack Oliver and Fletcher Henderson, Burns uses historically appropriate of New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Chicago and New York City to set the scene. The vintage music in the background (like Armstrong's "West End Blues") makes you feel almost like you were there.

The First Effective Breaking of the Color Barrier

Because jazz musicians, both black and white, were driven only by a deep feeling and affinity for the jazz "sound" and feel, there tended to be no color barrier between them, except for those that were strongly enforced by club owners and promoters to stop segregated bands at all costs.

After hours when the customers were gone, the musicians held all-night jam sessions without the faintest concern about race -- it was all about the music and only the music. Popular band leaders like Paul Whiteman wanted very much to hire black musicians, who could usually play better. But in the 1920s and well into the 1930s, no integrated band had any hope of getting work, regardless of how much customers wanted to hear them.

By the 1930s, Benny Goodman had added black musicians like Fletcher Henderson and Lionel Hampton to his recordings, and eventually, brought them to the stage. As audiences became integrated, especially in ballrooms like Harlem's famous Savoy, so did the bands.

What to Buy from Jazz?

Burns' video series on The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz are all complete and comprehensive in scope, but if you don't think you'd watch them often enough to justify the $150 plus purchase price, consider buying the CD set of recordings for less than $60.00. With the work of Goodman, Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and dozens of others, you'll have a "souvenir" from the series that you can enjoy for many years, over and over again.

Recommended Additional Reading

Here in Omaha, we are fortunate to have a living and still-working jazz legend in alto-saxaphone player Preston Love, who still plays in local restaurants with a small and talented ensemble several nights a week.

Love, who traveled with Count Basie in the 1940s and was friends with many of the musicians profiled in Burns' Jazz series, has written a personal account of long days and nights on the road, A Thousand Honey Creeks Later: My Life in Music from Basie to Motown. His account will tell you what Burns' series, enjoyable as it is, cannot about the joys of creating memorable, significant music while working to overcome the indignities of segregation suffered by so many through the evolution of jazz.

I bought my copy on Amazon.com, after trying unsuccessfully to buy it locally.

Burns' series will be a classic, and I highly recommend that anyone who hasn't seen the first six episodes go ahead and tune into the remaining four. Each episode stands alone very well and is not dependent upon the prior one.

There's more information on the PBS website, www.pbs.org.