Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American Music [BOX SET] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Ken Burns JAZZ Collection, Various Artists - Jazz

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 14, 2000)
• Original Release Date: November 14, 2000
• Number of Discs: 5
• Format: Box set, Original recording remastered
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000050HVG
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,821 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
This five-CD box set soundtrack to filmmaker Ken Burns's 10-part, 19-hour documentary Jazz spans nearly a century of jazz styles, from the martial rhythms of James Reese Europe to the soul-jazz of Grover Washington Jr. It includes time-tested classics like Benny Goodman's 1938 classic, "Sing, Sing, Sing"; John Coltrane's chanting 1965 immortal track, "A Love Supreme"; Billie Holiday's blue-ember ballad, "God Bless the Child"; and Ella Fitzgerald peeling off "A-Tisket A-Tasket." Bebop is represented by Charlie Parker's orchestral bop version of "Just Friends"; Thelonious Monk's nocturnal calling card, "'Round Midnight"; and Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" and "Groovin' High."

The jazz-instrumentalist-as-singer comes to life on Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" and Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers' "Doodlin'." Clifford Brown and Max Roach's "I Get a Kick out of You" epitomizes the hard-bop era, while Miles Davis's "So What" stands as the modal masterpiece. The cool school is in session with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan dishing out "Walkin' Shoes," and the Modern Jazz Quartet's soulful elegy "Django" straddles all the above musical orbits. As for Django Reinhardt, he's featured on "Shine" with the justly famed Le Quartet du Hot Club de France.

Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" and "Potato Head Blues" and Duke Ellington's rousing rendition of Billy Strayhorn's anthem, "Take the A Train," and his moody "Solitude" show why they are the Olympian masters of this art form--and the most frequently featured artists in the series. Although Ken Burns tries bringing the music up-to-date with Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, and two jazz-hip-hop-influenced tracks--Herbie Hancock's robotic "Rockit" and the French-language "Un Aige en Danger" by MC Solaar and bass legend Ron Carter--there are significant holes here. After Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, the avant-garde period from the late 1960s to the 1980s is lacking. And aside from the bossa nova hit "Desafinado," Latin jazz is also missing. It's a tough task summarizing jazz in five CDs, and Burns has given us a vibrant and vivid multicolored aural portrait of the music. --Eugene Holley Jr.

From Jazziz
Ken Burns Jazz - The Story of America's Music collects 94 tracks of music on five CDs along with 48 pages of annotation, explanation, and photographic documentation. It's all in the service of telling a tale of Americans working together, overcoming differences and conflicts, and moving toward a common goal. The general backdrop, of course, is the development of an indigenous music and its intertwinings with American life throughout the 20th century. But the central characters of this boxed-set story are really Burns, by now this country's pre-eminent documentary filmmaker; the producers at PBS, the original if no longer the dominant national television network; and the staffs of two major record labels, Verve and Columbia Legacy, who, in combination, possess a significant slice of jazz's history in their vaults.

Before it can be appreciated as a telling of jazz's tale, Ken Burns Jazz needs to be considered as the landmark in jazz promotion that it is. Burns is one of few Americans - maybe the only one - who could commandeer some 20 hours of television time dedicated to jazz, a music that, despite its rich history, now appeals to only a small minority of American ears. Burns has surrounded his 10-part PBS documentary with a book, a five-CD boxed set, a 20-track "best of" CD, and 22 single-artist discs that compile the work of artists profiled in the series. The musical output represents a rare and historic union of two companies that regularly compete for market share in jazz's reissue bins (and that's where much of the action is these days).

But this is about raising jazz's market share overall, and one need only read the evangelical zeal of Burns' liner notes to appreciate that. That's something we need not - in fact, should not - look at cynically. If the record executives are hopping on Burns' bandwagon, it's for a good reason: Besides the fact that jazz isn't heard all that much by general audiences, even when it is heard, it lacks context. For most people, jazz needs a storyline, a framework. Burns focused his lens in an effort to do just that, and it may prove to be the most powerful vehicle to drive jazz sales since the "young lions" movement of the early 1990s, when Wynton Marsalis and others were the focal points of resurgent interest in jazz.

As with that movement, discontent is likely to ripple throughout the jazz community in reference to the five-CD set. "What about Jackie McLean?" they'll cry. "Is Dizzy Gillespie's 'Manteca' all there is to Afro Cuban jazz?" they'll shout. "What about artists playing in clubs today, like Joe Lovano and Geri Allen and Greg Osby?" And let's not even talk about free improvisation. There are omissions to catch the eye of nearly any jazz lover.

But that's not the point. Ken Burns Jazz is the accompaniment to a film - the story as Burns tells it. In Burns' 10-part telling, the first nine episodes run through 1961, with the last summarizing the music since. This decision is a clear point of controversy, especially for those whose ears are more attuned to recordings of the '60s and beyond. Burns firmly contends that he is a historian, that he's telling a story of the inspiration behind the development of jazz.

Those taking Burns' project overall as a manifesto - that jazz stopped decades ago - are overreacting or misinterpreting. Taken on its own terms, a good deal of important detail is imparted as Discs One, Two, and Three move through the 1920s, '30s, and '40s. As one would expect, heaping helpings of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are laid out. There's also some music that helped give rise to jazz, like a 1919 recording of James Reese Europe's 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Band, two early Jelly Roll Morton tracks, and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, recorded in 1923. The first four discs support Burns' story quite well - that is to say, he succeeds in setting the music in a meaningful context for general listeners. But Disc Five, which moves from Armstrong's 1963 version of "Hello, Dolly!" to the Miles Davis Quintet's "E.S.P." (1965) to Herbie Hancock's 1983 MTV hit "Rockit" before ending with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra's "Take the 'A' Train" seems a confused hodgepodge - an attempt to cover too much ground. That's not surprising: Burns' story doesn't really deal in-depth with free jazz, fusion jazz, hip-hop jazz or contemporary forms of any stripe. He's waving the flag of jazz as sewn by its founders. And if this box sends listeners off to fill in the gaps or extend the tale themselves, there are any number of satisfying sequels to assemble.

--- Larry Blumenfeld, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

147 of 151 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major inclusions...minor omissions, November 25, 2000

By	J. Lund "jazzbrat" (SoCal, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Along with a number of other jazz fans and critics, I've been looking forward to the Ken Burns Jazz video history with mixed emotions, given that what has already been issued--the book in particular--seemed to lack a basic understanding of the art form's most-recent half-century. Although there is some evidence of that stance here, the sheer abundance of classic tracks on this five-CD set makes it an excellent introduction to the art form, particularly for newcomers. Absorb this box, and you are well on your way to experiencing the width and depth of this ever-evolving art form, one that at its best values both teamwork and individuality.

What I like about this set is that with five-CDs, there is room to give a number of important events in jazz history a bit more play than just a cameo appearance. For instance, Louis Armstrong's 1920s classic hot 5/hot 7 recordings are represented by three key tracks. With 2-3 examples of such creative peaks, one can better discern the unique qualities of each artist. With multiple chances to listen, one can become more familiar with a player's sound...the consistencies and variances in a player's solo approach become increasingly apparent when comparisons can be made.

Other early greats are similiarly documented, from Ellington, Basie, Goodman, and Billie Holiday up through the late-1940s bebop revolution (Monk, Parker, Gillespie, Powell, Davis, etc.). The one negative about this set is that, after bebop, there isn't enough room left in the box to continue this comparison process. Thus, only two artists (Ellington and Davis) out of jazz's most recent half-century get more than one track per creative peak each..and at least in Miles' case, the two successive tracks are nearly bookends to a extended, rapidly evolving period of creativity.

Even so, there is at least a taste of the avant-garde, fusion, pop jazz, bossa nova, neo-classicism, etc., so recent events are not entirely ignored, just given relatively brief exposure. Add that to the excellent overview of jazz's up-and-coming decades, and this set overall serves a valuable purpose, particularly for those who wonder what jazz is ALL about.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful introduction to jazz, with a few provisos...., November 27, 2000

By	Ted Graham "bromius9" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This is a wonderful 5-disc set of the history of jazz music. In fact, I listened to it all in one sitting, and I can say as an introduction for those uninitiated in the ways of jazz, this is a superb collection. However, it is by no means thorough. I suppose you might expect this from an introduction, but I was somewhat surprised to see its extensive inclusion of Ellington, Davis and especially Armstrong at the expense of some rather less well known artists. Alloting to the great Django Reinhardt a single track seems a crime. Even so, it's a good listen. As my dear friend says, a true jazz afficianado is never satisfied.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Gift for the Jazz Fan in Your Life, December 20, 2000

By	karolinatx (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

I received this boxed set as a Christmas gift from a good friend of mine who knows that I love jazz. The five CDs are a wonderful representation of the history of jazz, from its beginnings just after the turn of the century, to contemporary greats. Featuring the music of legends like Dizzie Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Goodman, and countless others, it's well compiled and well published. If however, you're already a jazz fan, and have particular likes and favorites, then you might be better off buying a more specified box set. Personally, though, I was thrilled with the gift, even if it didn't particularly highlight favorites of mine such as Ella Fitzgerald and Antonio Carlos Jobim. It's a great choice for seasoned jazz fans, or perhaps for someone who is interested in learning more about jazz. A great starter set! I'm very much looking forward to the series on PBS.