Killjazz:  Ken Burns on Jazz

Jack Foley

History is about stories that are over. 
--Ken Burns in an interview ("The San Francisco Chronicle," 1/7/01)

A friend writes, "Curious to hear the take of others on the Ken Burns PBS Jazz Series." Burns's series, "Jazz," manifests not only as a nineteen-hour, somewhat repetitious television program but as a 490-page book ("Jazz: A History of America's Music"), twenty-eight CDs, and ten DVD discs. Boxed sets of the series will be available. The series, says Burns, "made me a better person."

Much of the show is "Ken Burns Loves Wynton Marsalis." There are some good visuals (still photos and film) and some nice segments. Burns's handling of the death of Louis Armstrong is very moving until the awful moment when Wynton Marsalis comes in to tell us exactly what Armstrong's "overwhelming message" was. And oh, the deadening deadening pious platitudes that get spoken over and over again. Surprisingly, the music really isn't very well presented: marvelous records get cut off, voiced over or turned into "illustrations." One of the surest ways to make it absolutely impossible to react to something is to load it with superlatives before presenting it--leaving no room for the self-discovery essential to response: well, that's precisely the way "Jazz" presents everything! Surely none of jazz's early practitioners ever feared that the music would be threatened by Genteel Respectability--but that's what Ken Burns is doing to it. The difference between what Burns is doing and a good documentary--"Jazz on a Summer's Day," "Straight, No Chaser"--is that Burns's all-embracing "point of view" is constantly in evidence: "This is the greatest piece of music ever recorded"--so there! At no point is he willing to step back and let the material speak for itself. Of course to do that would be to risk losing control. But such "losing control" is one of the things that jazz is about. It is an art which is constantly dedicated to discovering the new, to reinventing melody. There isn't a single new idea in Burns's long, tedious attempt at a comprehensive "history."

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I'm still watching Ken Burns's jazz series and still complaining about it. Burns and his corporate sponsors believe that the "educational" consists of a bunch of people telling you things. Part of the ponderousness of the series lies in that fact. One more "this had never been done before" (maybe with good reason!); one more "this is the greatest thing since fried bread." I tend to believe that the "educational" consists of people asking you things--or placing you in a situation where your spirit is liberated towards questioning rather than acceptance. Jazz is an art of questioning, a reinvention of melody. Burns is telling you one thing after another. For him, "history" is precisely that: telling you one thing after another. (It's the same as the Church: you have to believe it.) He has a chorus of people, but they're all saying the same thing! For me, the genuinely historical moment is the moment of realization that nothing--not even identity--is fixed. Despite the program's repeated assertions of jazz as the ultimate "democratic" art form, "Jazz" is just another dogma--though, as has often been the case with dogmas, it has some good visuals.

There was one moment when Duke Ellington was asked about writing for "my people." He said, "Wait a minute, we have to figure out just what ‘my people' is. I belong to a lot of groups." He then listed a whole bunch of "groups"--including piano players and those who appreciate Beaujolais. Not once did he say "Negro" or "Black people" or "African Americans." His point was clear: identity is multiple; what we call "Negro" identity is multiple. Ken Burns tends to see Black jazz musicians as a credit to their "race" and to see race or ethnicity not as a variable element in a person's identity but as something absolute and given.

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My friend answers, "I find myself in complete agreement with your take on Burns' documentary. Hence, I fell asleep in #3. I'll hang in there in hopes of some good footage later.... I also understand that experimentation is ditched by Burns (including Miles Davis's later work)--barely given much of a mention. Odd history indeed for an art form so wed to improvisation and experimentation...."

Yes, but not an odd history for an art form (Burns's) so wed to corporations and consumption. As you are to "believe" what Burns says about jazz, so you are to "believe" what these corporations are saying about their products--and, beyond that, about America. Phillip Morris used to have a slogan, "It takes Art to make a company great." Commercial enterprises trying to achieve the "inevitability" and "permanence" (but not the subversiveness) of a canonized piece of art. Burns plays right along with it: he's a studio musician: just tell me the changes and I'll give you what you want.His series is really about the perilous intersection of a control freak--an "auteur" with a vengeance--with an art rooted in improvisation and innovation. What results has its fascinations: there is so much wonderful music and footage available that it's hard to go completely wrong. And beyond that, there is a sense in which what Burns is doing really is "America's Music"--the kind of thing Americans like. (In a follow-up story--1/31/01-- "The San Francisco Chronicle" speaks of the series' "impressive TV ratings" and the "phenomenal sales" of CDs "with the Burns imprint.") But, all in all, I'd rather listen to Louis Armstrong.

Jack Foley