Ken Burns’ Jazz
Conclusion: When the Saints Go Marching In
Commentary by Charles Sawyer
From Episodes 9 and 10 of the final week in the series there are many gems, but I can only report a few.
During the fifties and sixties there is a dramatic decline in the popularity of jazz as the music assumes forms that many fans find unrecognizable. Popular taste shifts to the emerging forms of rock 'n' roll, soul, and rhythm-and-blues. Yet some jazz artists flourish. Episode 9 covers the staggering opus of John Coltrane. If you judge just from the passion of the musicians who comment on his music you would conclude that he, not any of the others, was the greatest jazz musician who ever lived. Branford Marsalis, Wynton’s brother, describes his complete absorption in Coltrane's music after he first heard it, playing his albums morning, noon and night, quite literally, for six months on end. [Branford, by the way, is my favorite Marsalis.]
Other artists suffer tragic decline and premature death in the fifties. Billy Holliday and Lester Young, whose careers and artistry are intimately intertwined, appear as wasted ghosts, addled and emptied by addiction. To him she is "Lady Day." To her he is "The President," shortened to "Prez." Before his death on March 15, 1959, Prez spends his final days living in the Alvin Hotel on 52nd street across the street from Birdland, listening to records and going to movie theatres, to sit alone hour after hour in the dark staring at the screen. Two months later, Holliday, herself a dreadful wreck, collapses on stage and is rushed to the hospital. There she is arrested and put under guard for possession of heroin, smuggled into her room. She dies on July 17, 1959, at age 44.
Louis Armstrong, now considered old-fashioned by the new crop of jazz artists, still
tours relentlessly and enjoys popular acclaim despite failing health. In 1957, after seeing televised footage of whites jeering at black children trying to enter the high school in Little Rock during desegregation, he risks his career by canceling a goodwill tour to the Soviet Union sponsored by the State Department. He can not lie to Soviet fans about the condition of black people in this country, he says. This silences critics who accuse him of being an "Uncle Tom," but elicits calls from others for a boycott of his music! He doesn't back down, and never retracts the harsh statements he made to the press about the incident.
Episode 10 is the one most criticized by musicians for compressing the last 40 years of jazz history into the final episode. But Burns clearly isn't ready to deal with that period. Instead this segment contains a pair of powerful eulogies to the two great artists and musical saints, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, whose life stories are powerful currents flowing throughout the series. The images and music from their last years and their passing, with expressions from those who knew them of the sadness that descended on the world when they were gone, are presented beautifully and brought me to the edge of tears.
The other thing that distinguishes Episode 10 is this question: Is jazz dead? Some musicians have risen to the bait and cried, "How dare you even ask such a question!"
But Burns asks it only to give himself the chance to answer it. The answer is "No."
And now it's over. Thank God. Nineteen hours of viewing over four weeks have
left me feeling elated but mentally exhausted. Jazz is a work of such cultural importance and great scope that I am reluctant to declare any judgments or express any final opinions, even though I have more impressions than I could possibly describe. What should we make of this work of towering ambition?
First, it's worth asking what Ken Burns is trying to accomplish, beyond presenting a narrative history of jazz intertwined with American social and political history.
His major goal, I think, is to secure a twin legacy for jazz as high art and as a major contributor to American democracy through racial understanding and improved racial equality. Wynton Marsalis makes the point that playing (and by extension, listening to) jazz music requires an attitude of empathy. In his words, "You got to listen. …The music forces you at all times to address what other people are thinking…and to deal with the process of working things out. That's how our music could really teach what the meaning of American democracy is." Or could be.
Burns -- and the business and media moguls behind him -- hope this double legacy will take root in our collective consciousness not just by reaching the TV viewing audience, but in the after-market of schools, universities, libraries, and millions of personal record and video collections. PBS and several corporate giants promoted the series with a marketing campaign and product tie-ins that resemble a Disney effort. Two hundred thousand copies of the companion book to the series were shipped in advance, as well as orders for a hundred fifty thousand CD's of music from the series. Amazon.com set up a website devoted solely to Jazz -related merchandise, http://www.amazon.com/ken-burns-jazz-store. Musicians, club owners and record producers are hoping that the series will rescue jazz from commercial oblivion.
Another of Burns' goals is to fix forever in our national consciousness the reputations of a few figures as the musical/artistic geniuses of our nation. Just as democracy has its heroes and saints, such as Thomas Jefferson, (the subject of another documentary series by Ken Burns) so jazz has its saints and these, of course, are Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. And when these saints come marching in, right behind them are Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Amen.
Watching the segment on Coltrane I had to struggle with my own intellectual demons. Why, I ask myself, don’t I get it? Why does art of such grandeur, so loved by people with great minds and big hearts for music, do so little for me? This frustrating feeling of being left out afflicts me not just with Coltrane, but whenever I try to enjoy or appreciate most "modern" jazz, from bebop (just too damn fast for me) to the present, with a few exceptions (Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Art Pepper). Most modern art leaves me scratching my head, too, and it’s not for lack of trying, lack of brains, or lack of education! This, I would say, is the only thing that really bothered me about the entire series, this feeling of perplexity¾ how come I don’t get it?¾ that descends on me whenever form becomes content in art. Oh well, I know exactly how Branford Marsalis felt when Coltrane's music possessed him. [In a commentary on the series aired by WGBH jazz DJ Eric Jackson told of his own obsession with Coltrane. Jackson carried his Coltrane album everywhere he went and insisted on playing it on his friends' stereos when he came to visit.] The difference is that my obsessions are in the next county over from jazz, namely blues. I was every bit as possessed by Paul Butterfield, Little Walter Jacobs and Kim Wilson (all harmonica players).
Time will tell, but I’m betting that Burns goal of legacy is within his grasp. Every library with a serious media collection will have the Ken Burns Jazz CDs and video boxed sets. Nobody will be able to dismiss Louis Armstrong as a mere entertainer, a practitioner of "ooftah", which, as actor Ossie Davis explained, is the word for putting out a load of jive to con the white folks. Ellington was less in need of rescue than Armstrong, but his reputation, too, is buttressed by this series.
Critics fault Burns for overusing the cherubic Wynton Marsalis as a commentator, and for the solemn tone of the narrator, saying that if jazz wasn't dead before, Burns will kill it with this mausoleum of a series! People complain that the musical passages are not long enough, and that important figures are slighted or left out. But Burns had a lot of balls to juggle in making the series, and he didn't make it primarily for musical historians or other specialists, he made it for us mainstream Americans of all colors, shapes and sizes.
Personally, I am grateful to Ken Burns for this series. As a lover of blues I have always lamented my sketchy knowledge of jazz history. And I'm grateful to The Tri-Town Transcript for inviting me to write these articles because I had to pay much closer attention than I would have as a casual viewer. I think Burns' critics are too harsh and I think to myself, "What do they want from the man? Give him another 6 years and a pile of dough so he can make another 19 hour film and then he can do the things you wanted him to do." If he ever does another 19 hours, I’ll be there, ready to watch. Six years from now I’ll be ready, but not anytime sooner, please.
Preview reviews in this series can be found at:
Week #1: http://fas.harvard.edu/~sawyer/KenBurnsJazz.htm