Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns
List Price:
Our Price: $161.99
You Save: $18.00 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $65.97 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Brand: PARAMOUNT PICTURESDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1140 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-28
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Pbs Paramount
Movie Reviews of Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns
Movie Review: "A" for Entertainment, "C-" for History
Summary: 2 Stars
Ken Burns is an effective filmakeer; if only he were an effective historian! Jazz is a deeply flawed project. The rise of recorded sound and the mass media compressed the history of Jazz. In less than a century, Jazz has seen as many movements/counter-movements and revolutionary outbursts as art or classical music saw over many centuries, but in Jazz, movements last years, not decades, and what was considered "radical" in 1945 was "traditional" or even "old hat" by 1960. Yet this rich tug of war between sub-genres is almost entirely absent in Burns' work.
Because Burns is not a trained musician, he relied on others to flesh out the idiom's history for him. In choosing Wynton Marsalis as his cultural beacon, he inadvertently chose by far one of the most conservative voices in Jazz. Mr. Marsalis is a formidable musician, but many in Jazz dispute his very narrow outlook on the art. In Mr. Marsalis' world, the only "real" jazz is blues infused. Blues is indeed a powerful component of jazz, but the 12 bar alternation of the three chords (I,IV and V) is just one of a panoply of styles. Styles that don't fall into Marsalis' limited stylistic orbit are either completely ignored in Burns' work, or dismissed as the peripheral musical ravings of a hack.
Burns' film only covers some aspects of Jazz from 1900 to 1961. It's like telling the story of Classical music but stopping short with Brahms, blithely ignoring anything that came after 1890, sweeping the huge burst of creativity that followed under the cultural carpet. Just as the history of classical music cannot ignore towering 20th figures such as Mahler, Stravinsky, Sehoenberg, Bartok, Hindemith, Copland, Shostokovich, Cage and others, a huge multi-part history of Jazz should not stop abruptly at 1961.
Just like a conservative telling of classical music (where Bach, Beethoven and Brahms rule over all) we are given cultural pantheons, most notably Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, while others, even remarkable revolutionaries, are ignored or denigrated.
Mr. Armstrong is indeed a powerful and influential figure in Jazz. He pretty much invented vocal "scat" and his early "Hot 5s and 7s" recordings are powerful statements of a folk tradition morphing beyond it's roots into a sophisticated art form. But Mr. Armstrong's influence waned, indeed one could argue died entirely, with the advent of "bebop" in the early 1940s. bebop is more complex harmonicially, replacing the simple chord progressions of the Blues with free-ranging progressions of dozens of chords, pushing the bounds of tonality with "substitution chords," rapid fire and complex improvisation, and chromatic flights of fancy.
Burns' romantic portrayal of Jazz masks what was often a very cantankerous battle among various factions. Mr. Armstrong passionately hated bebop. The practitioners of bebop, Charlie "Bird" Parker and othes, disdained in turn what they saw as the pedantic "moldy figs" of Armstrong's older generation. Ultimately, bebop tugged at tonality as aggressively as the late 19th century classical composers, and like in the classical traditional, it paved the way for a great tonal/atonal divide.
But in Mr. Burns' film its as if the tremendous atonal earthquake brought forth on the album "Free Jazz" never happened. The album was as influential as the huge controversy that greeted Igor Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" in the classical genre. One can love or hate it, but one cannot ignore it. The battles music fans engaged in when John Coltrane embraced atonality with his album "Ascension" are lost on the Burns/Marselis collective imagination. Eric Dolphy's monumental "Out to Lunch" is...well...out to lunch in this miniseries. In Mr. Burns world of gentle jazz, there is little room for radicals.
But in the real world, the split between tonality and atonality shook Jazz to its core for decades. Musicians coming of age in the 1960s through the early 1990s, whether self-taught or emerging from colleges, universities and conservatories, would chose one of two pathways. On one side of the cultural fork, they could chose the tonal, blues and big band infused "inside" or "in" path, or they could opt for the more adventurous atonal, avant garde, "outside" or "out" path. For Jazz, this was *the* civil war. Mr. Burns film doesn't allow for civil wars; indeed, often the music comes off as gentle parlor music, approachable even to the most gentle ears.
Over time, the "out" path became linked to the cultural notion of Black Power. The American Academy of Colored Music (AACM) in Chicago issued manifestos reminiscent of those that radicals in the art movement put forth in early 20th Century Europe. The only true African American music, for the AACM, was "out" and aggressively so. They called for a rejection of classically influenced (and thus "white") tonality.
The inevitable influence of Rock and electronic music on Jazz doesn't exist in the Burns/Marsalis landscape. "Bitches Brew," which fused elements of "in", "out" and rock on a two album release that was, for a time, the darling of thousands of young teenagers who'd never listened to the blues, or to big band. The movement it spawned, Fusion, is not here either. Weather Report and other groups commited the cultural sin of mixing "pure" jazz with "polluted" rock. There is no place for them in Mr. Marsalis' world, and hence no place for them in Mr. Burns' documentary. Nor, it seems, is there room for important and emerging asian or latin american stylists, and fuggetabout "Acid Jazz," where hip hop, rap and jazz come together in exciting and suprising ways.
Perhaps the deepest iniquity we must endure with Burns' documentary is the "museum-ification" of Jazz. Jazz is a living art, indeed, many would argue that a new generation of young musicians are engaging today in an historic and lively dialog on both the tonal and atonal paths. But living musicians, such as Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Don Byron and Dave Holland do not appear. Jazz is presented by Burns as a dead art; we only hear from the dead musicians, even in the final episode. That does little to encourage increased exploration of LIVING musicians pracicing a LIVING art.
`
Summary of Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns
JAZZ is a ten-part nearly nineteen-hour documentary series that celebrates America's greatest original art form a music whose improvisational spirit perfectly reflects the nation that gave it birth. It is the first television series ever to tell the story of jazz. Beginning with the birth of jazz at the dawn of the Twentieth Century the film incorporates the wide range of American culture and historical events that interact directly with the music: among them the harsh racial polarization of the 1890s; the artistic and political ferment of the Harlem Renaissance; the exuberance of the Jazz Age; the Great Depression and the New Deal; the Second World War; the emergence of a youth culture in the 1950s and 1960s; the hope anger and expectations of the civil rights movement; and the search for identity and authenticity in the 1970s 1980s and 1990s.DVD Features: Featurette: "Making of Jazz"Additional Scenes: Three full length performances not seen in the filmPlaylist information for over 500 songs Music and Photo creditsSystem Requirements: Running Time 1140 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. UPC: 841887051255 Manufacturer No: 705125Accompanied by a menagerie of products, Ken Burns's expansive 10-episode paean, Jazz, completes his trilogy on American culture, following The Civil War and Baseball. Spanning more than 19 hours, Jazz is, of course, about a lot more than what many have called America's classical music--especially in episodes 1 through 7. It's here that Burns unearths precious visual images of jazz musicians and hangs historical narratives around the music with convincing authority. Time can stand still as images float past to the sound of grainy vintage jazz, and the drama of a phonograph needle being placed on Louis Armstrong's celestial "West End Blues" is nearly sublime.
The film is also potent in arguing that the history of race in the 20th-century U.S. is at jazz's heart. But a few problems arise. First is Burns's reliance on Wynton Marsalis as his chief musical commentator. Marsalis might be charming and musically expert, but he's no historian. For the film to devote three of its episodes to the 1930s, one expects a bit more historical substance. Also, Jazz condenses the period of 1961 to the present into one episode, glossing over some of the music's giant steps. Burns has said repeatedly that he didn't know much about jazz when he began this project. So perhaps Jazz, for all its glory, would better be called Jazz: What I've Learned Since I Started Listening (And I Haven't Gotten Much Past 1961). For those who are already passionate about jazz, the film will stoke debate (and some derision, together with some reluctant praise). But for everyone else, it will amaze and entertain and kindle a flame for some of the greatest music ever dreamed. --Andrew Bartlett
Documentary DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in Important and Noteworthy Documentaries
Wild Man BluesNew Line Home Video; Release date: 1999-11-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.79
Price in other shops:
American Experience - Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House DividedRelease date: 2005-02-15; DVD
Best price: $29.28
Price in other shops:
American Experience - Eleanor RooseveltRelease date: 2006-01-10; DVD
Best price: $18.99
Price in other shops:
Super Size MeSony; Release date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $5.06
Price in other shops:
An Inconvenient TruthPARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2006-11-21; DVD
Best price: $13.87
Price in other shops:
Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light KidsDVD
Best price: $10.33
Jazz - A Film By Ken BurnsPARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $110.21
Price in other shops:
Mr. Death: The Rise & Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr.Release date: 2003-07-22; DVD
Best price: $8.92
Price in other shops:
The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamaraRelease date: 2004-05-11; DVD
Best price: $8.43
Price in other shops:
The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - Criterion CollectionRelease date: 2000-11-14; DVD
Best price: $27.47
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
Jazz Icons 9 DVD Box SetRelease date: 2006-10-31; DVD
Best price: $115.99
Price in other shops:
The History of Rock and RollWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-06-29; DVD
Best price: $29.53
Price in other shops:
Thelonious Monk - Straight No ChaserWarner Brothers; Release date: 2001-01-30; DVD
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Jazz: A History of America's Musicby Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns, Albert Murray, Dan Morgenstern
Knopf; Published: 2000-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $40.68
Price in other shops:
Ken Burns - American Lives (Thomas Jefferson / Lewis & Clark / Frank Lloyd Wright / Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B Anthony / Mark Twain / Horatio's Drive / Unforgivable Blackness)Release date: 2005-10-25; DVD
Best price: $99.98
Price in other shops:
Ken Burns Presents: The WestRelease date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $69.96
Price in other shops:
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues - A Musical JourneyRelease date: 2003-10-14; DVD
Best price: $92.98
Price in other shops:
The Civil War - A Film by Ken BurnsBURNS,KEN; Release date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $78.74
Price in other shops:
Baseball - A Film By Ken BurnsUnknown; Release date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $92.44
Price in other shops:
Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American MusicRelease date: 2000-11-14; Music CD
Best price: $36.81
Price in other shops: