| |  | DVD : Jazz : A Film By Ken Burns |  | | | | | | | | | | from: PBS Paramount
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
EAN: 0841887051255
Label: PBS Paramount
Manufacturer: PBS Paramount
Number Of Items: 10
Publisher: PBS Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 28, 2004
Running Time: 1140 minutes
Sales Rank: 13904
Studio: PBS Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: January 08, 2001
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
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: 705125
Amazon.com essential video:
Accompanied 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
Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Nice Smile With a Missing Tooth!
The greatest compliment to this series is that it has created a torrent of discussion and the debates are still raging.I enjoy this series so much, I watch it nearly every year.
My critique has been discussed at length, so I summarize this way:
I appreciate Wynton Marsalis' discussion of the jazz with which he is familiar.This does not qualify Wynton Marsalis to decide, for everyone else, what constitutes jazz when the question of "fusion" comes up.
Much ... Read More
Rating: - It's not perfect, but its pretty much all we have
I will admit that this series has its shortcomings, however no one else has even attempted to produce anything better.I'm no great lover of Ken Burns, but he did at least attempt to bring the history of Jazz to the masses in some form or another.It's not perfect by any means, but if it can spur the interest of even one person to delve into the music itself then the doc and Burns have done their job.To all the naysayer's I propose that you shut your traps unless you yourselves are planning to ... Read More
Rating:  - Ken Burns' Hyperbole Jazz
I saw some of this series when it first came out on PBS, and now I'm seeing it again, having finished "The Gift" up to this point. Frankly, I don't know how much more of it I can take.
The subject matter is fine, but the amount of gushing hyperbole from the Talking Heads is close to unbearable. I suppose it's perfectly OK to be enthusiastic about something, but such total lack of restraint renders anything they have to say suspect; there's no judgment here, no sense of balance.
... Read More
Rating:  - Ken Burns didn't S#@8 about jazz when he did this and it shows
My main issue is that Wynton suggested after seeing Civil Wars and Baseball that Burns should do a series about the only truly American art for that being Jazz (or black music from field hollers to blues etc).Wynton is sort of neo-con about jazz and I am not into totally free jazz or commercial fusion or jazz light.I agree that the innovations after 1964 into atonal free jazz or more akin to avant garde classical like Schoeneberg or Cage.But when covering be-bop into the important "New Thing" that ... Read More
Rating: - "A" for Entertainment, "C-" for History
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 ... Read More
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