Jazz Documentary Youtube

[Walda Caesar]

Jazzis a 2001 television documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns. It was broadcast on PBS in 2001[2] and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.[3] Its chronological and thematic episodes provided a history of jazz, emphasizing innovative composers and musicians and American history.

Swing musicians Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the central figures.[4] Several episodes discussed the later contributions of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to bebop, and of Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and John Coltrane to free and cool jazz. Of this 10-part documentary surveying jazz in the years from 1917 to 2001, all but the last episode are devoted to music pre-1961. The series was produced by Florentine Films in cooperation with the BBC and in association with WETA-TV, Washington.

The documentary concerned the history of jazz music in the United States, from its origins at the turn of the 20th century to the present day. It was narrated by Keith David and featured interviews with present-day musicians and critics such as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (also the artistic director and co-producer of Jazz) and critics Gary Giddins and Stanley Crouch. Music critic and African-American historian Gerald Early was a consultant. Broadcaster and producer Phil Schaap was interviewed briefly.

Visually, Jazz was in the same style as Ken Burns' previous works: slowly panning and zooming shots of photographs are mixed with period movie sequences, accompanied by music of, and commentary on, the period being examined. Between these sequences, present-day jazz figures provided anecdotes and explained the defining features of the major musicians' styles. Duke Ellington's "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" (1938) was a recurring motif at the opening and closing of individual episodes of the series.

The documentary focused on a number of major musicians: Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the central figures, "providing the narrative thread around which the stories of other major figures turn",[4] among them Sidney Bechet, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Reason magazine wrote that Jazz "is filled with rewards, many of them proffered unintentionally. ... Burns's documentary gifts are not visionary, analytical, nor even properly historical. Rather, he is a talented biographer, and his films are most effective when he is able to present an overarching narrative in terms of the biographical detail of that narrative's participants."[5]

Jason Van Bergen said, "The nearly 19 hours of documentary coverage contained in the Jazz series unravels like a fine wine", and due to the series' attention to detail, "a complete discussion of every episode in Ken Burns's Jazz would be better suited for a master's thesis" than to his brief review. ... Burns's encyclopedic rendering of the growth of jazz cannot be questioned. Followers of the music will need this set on their shelves; but perhaps slightly more surprisingly, serious students of American history may also require the set to supplement their versions of the past century."[6]

In The New York Times, Ben Ratlife wrote that the program's "major thematic device is effective, and would not come naturally to a music-focused jazz historian. It is to show what happens when American whites and blacks encounter each other, not in the abstract but person to person, and make some sort of connection."[7]

Writing in the National Review, Deroy Murdock wrote, "the TV documentary sometimes feels like Thanksgiving dinner. It's rich, delightful, filling, altogether satisfying, and, here and there, hypnotic. ... Burns's film is never dull. It's fascinating and captivating."[8]

William Berlind wrote in The Observer, "In allowing Mr. Marsalis to guide him, Mr. Burns has ultimately done us a disservice. He has managed to make a vital, evolving music seem dead and static."[10]

Professor emeritus Frank Tirro wrote, "He gives, as one example, Louis Armstrong's 'West End Blues' as 'a reflection of the country in the moments before the Great Depression.' I cannot see how he can support this statement. What is it reflecting? The African Americans in Harlem, the Wall Street entrepreneurs, or the white middle-class farmers in Kansas and Iowa? This is bull-session history."[12]

Jazz has always been a fertile ground for filmmakers, but the last few years in particular have seen a flurry of jazz documentaries being made. Whilst some of these films profile individual musicians, others opt for a broader angle, focusing on a record label, or a particular social issue across jazz history.

Some have had interesting or important things to say; others have played jazz despite incredible challenges; others have had their lives cut tragically short. These are just some of the reasons that jazz has inspired has inspired so many great documentary films over the years.

Baker was enjoying living Europe and actually having something of a musical renaissance around this time, recording some of his most impressive trumpet playing, but he would sadly die in mysterious circumstances only a few months later.

Broadcast in 2001, Jazz outlines the history of the music all the way from its beginnings in the melting pot of New Orleans in the early 1900s up until the early 21st Century, across a 10-part series.

Directed by the American filmmaker Ken Burns, who has also made documentaries on The Civil War, The Vietnam War and Baseball, this jazz documentary series was six years in the making and contains 75 interviews with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Crouch and Gary Giddins, more than 500 hundred pieces of music, and thousands of still photographs and pieces of archive footage.

The film gives a hugely detailed chronological overview of jazz history but, as is probably to be expected given the breadth and complexity of the subject matter, it did receive criticism for what some felt were unfair omissions and biases.

Featuring clever editing, and narration from Marian McPartland and Roz Cron, both of whom played jazz as far back as the swing era, the film focuses on musicians who, in the face of exclusion from all-male outfits, formed female bands like The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, which was on the receiving end of extra prejudice as a racially integrated ensemble.

He also broke down racial barriers, becoming the first African American to play in a regular band on a major US television network, as well as making classic small group albums with Oscar Peterson and Thelonious Monk.

Directed by Liz Garbus, this 2015 documentary uses archival footage and never-before-heard recordings to tell some of the stories behind her music, including her period of self-exile in Liberia in the 1970s.

This stylish film tells the story of the legendary record label, and how two Jewish German immigrants, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, built an institution that produced some the best jazz albums of all time.

As a secondary narrative, we also witness the present-day recording of a Blue Note All-Stars Session, with current label artists including Robert Glasper, Ambrose Akinmusire and Kendrick Scott, who all give interviews.

With the approval of the Miles Davis estate, director Stanley Nelson was able to assemble an impressive cast of interviewees, including Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Jimmy Cobb, all Davis sidemen and major musicians in their own right.

Frances Taylor, his former wife, gives a fascinating account of their life together and we also hear from Juliette Greco, with whom he began a relationship whilst visiting Paris in 1949, and his son and nephew.

While the man bought the sound and social consciousness of total rhythm into his combination of African Highlife and jazz-funk? He also set upon living a lifestyle of breaking down conventions,largely coming out of the corruption that led to tragic events such as the murder of his own mother. This really embodies the full spectrum of emotion a life can have-from pioneering,to humorous to tragic. And it also helps bring out peoples understanding and misunderstanding of what African culture is really all about.

I was excited and surprised when I found out someone had made a documentary about my guy. Lee Morgan is so underappreciated that I Called Him Morgan could have been a bad film and I still might have thought it worthwhile. It could have been a bad film and I still might have even recommended it. But, blessedly, I Called Him Morgan is far from a bad film. It is thoroughly nuanced and it asks deep questions without steering the answers. It is not the film I expected, and for that I am glad.

Has anyone ever seen a real Second Line Jazz Funeral in New Orleans...and not one of the phony ones they put on for tourists at conventions? Yesterday I went to the send-off for New Orleans jazzman, Lionel Batiste, in Treme. Here's a Wikipedia link about Uncle Lionel.

I think I get what you mean by phony jazz funerals for the tourists. You mean on Bourbon Street! ANYTHING goes there, but you won't see one of those winding it's way to the cemeteries. If that happened, Marie Laveu might come visiting.

My First Jazz in China Experience

In the middle of this two-week trip to the other side of the planet, I innocently asked if there was any jazz in Shanghai. The answer was, of course, yes. A couple of nights later myself and a couple of our hosts piled into a cab and about 20 minutes later entered the famed Peace Hotel in downtown Shanghai. The main event was to listen to the renowned Peace Hotel Jazz Band which had been performing nightly there almost continuously since 1980. After consuming some smallish but very expensive sandwiches, out came six gentlemen who had to be in their sixties or seventies. I was bursting with anticipation. I was about to hear (I imagined) these six indigenous musicians play some very early jazz or Dixieland jazz. Within minutes of their playing what thoughts my imagination had conjured up were dashed on the rocks of aural reality.

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