Posted by Robert Hoyt on February 07, 2001 at 23:32:36:
We have previous parllels of these sorts of problems in jazz documentation. Back in the 30's, Hugues Panassie', the French critic, hooked up with Mezz Mezzrow, who helped him understand Le Jazz Hot. As I recall, Mezzrow also had some inane beliefs that only African-Americans could play "The Real Jazz." Marsalis is Burns' Mezzrow, albeit with faster fingering.
Burns has at least provided jazz fans with a fascinating parlor game to while away these grey, winter days: which were the most egregious errors of omission in his ten part diatribe?
My own vote for the most overlooked major jazzman in the series is Eddie Condon, who was a major force for many years. Because he was apparently color blind, Condon didn't fit the Burns party line. Eddie was playing and recording with Black musicians from the Twenties onward. He's always popping up in mixed bands with Louis, Waller, Red Allen, Alex Hill, Leonard Davis, etc. On his popular Town Hall concerts for the Blue Network in the mid-forties, he had Bechet, James P., Hot Lips Page and dozens of other African-Americans. His writings make it clear that if a musician sounded good to Condon, he couldn't have cared less about his race. He preferred that the guy know his way around a bottle of scotch, but his skin color was beside the point.
The suspicion lingers that Burns threw in so many shots of lynchings and storm troopers because even on P.B.S., sensationalism sells. I don't think he trusted the music to carry the show by itself.
Having Marsalis/Crouch as primary contributors to the series is like asking Teddy Kennedy to provide a summary of distinguished Presidents of the 20th Century. Chances are the Reagen years will not loom large in his final draft.
Gary Giddens has been praised by several writers to this bulletin board and he did seem to be one of the few on the show who actually spoke coherent English. Besides, in a recent edition of American Heritage, he voted for Bing Crosby as the most underrated singer of our day and Barbara Streissand as the most overrated, so he can't be all bad.
The winner of the Ken Burns Award for World's Greatest Jazz Singer is Bessie Smith . . . no, wait, Louis Armstrong . . . no, wait, Ella Fitzgerald . . . no, wait, Billie Holiday . . . no wait, Sarah . . . oh, never mind.
Ken Burns says he's a film maker but I think he's really in the reparations business.
Listening to Cecil Taylor on the final episode reminded me of a comment Charles Baudelaire made about Richard Wagner: "I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws."
The real tragedy for me was that in my desire to get all of Burns' nineteen hours on video, I had to tape over my only copy of "Good Pets Gone Bad."