HOME / culturebox: Arts, entertainment, and more.

Burned OutWhy did Ken Burns leave contemporary musicians out of Jazz?

By Seth MnookinPosted Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET

Illustration by Robert Neubecker If you've read the critical reaction to PBS's 10-part documentary Jazz (concluding this Wednesday at 9 p.m.), you know that Ken Burns and his crew of commentators pay scant attention to the post-Coltrane era. The 17-plus hour series devotes twice the amount of time to the four years between 1935 and 1939 as it does to the past four decades and hints that in recent years the public lost interest in jazz and the form has stagnated. Some critics have attributed this omission to the heavy hand of "senior creative consultant" Wynton Marsalis, who heads up what might be called the neocon movement of jazz, which, broadly stated, favors returning to codified jazz traditions over pushing the boundaries of the form.

RSS

Here's another, more innocuous theory. In Burns' series, jazz is inextricably tied to race and racial struggles; indeed, Burns has stated outright that Jazz, along with his series on the Civil War and baseball, is part of a trilogy on the theme of race in America. While it's relatively easy to build an early history of jazz around an examination of race, that relationship is much harder to plot when it comes to today's jazz renaissance.

Stars of the current jazz scene come from a wide range of backgrounds and draw on a mishmash of sources. Take the prayer shawl and fatigues-wearing John Zorn, spiritual leader of some of the most innovative musicians now playing in New York. Zorn has experimented with soundtracks, Japanese noise, and game theory—in his band Cobra, Zorn "conducts" by holding up randomly generated cards and giving ever-changing signals through gestures to a revolving cast of musicians—among other genres. Zorn's most transcendent recent work has been with his Jewish-themed group Masada. (Like Latin jazz, Western swing, and other subgenres that didn't fit neatly into a straightforward explication on race in America, klezmer music, or "Jewish jazz," was ignored by Burns.) Listen to "Gevurah," the first track from Bar Kokhba, a set of klezmer compositions Zorn sets as chamber music: With bassist Greg Cohen and pianist Anthony Coleman (two longtime Zorn collaborators who both record for Zorn's label, Tzadik) vamping on an almost sultry, Middle Eastern riff, drummer Kenny Wolleson beats out a syncopated rhythm that owes more to Latin jazz than it does to klezmer. The group reaches for inspiration from tango master Astor Piazzolla and Ornette Coleman's early quartets (click here to listen to two other selections from Bar Kokhba). Many of the musicians on Bar Kokhba are making equally rewarding, and hard to classify, music of their own. Trumpeter Dave Douglas released the best album of his career last year with Soul on Soul, a tribute to Mary Lou Williams, a woefully overlooked African-American piano player who reached her peak in the 1940s. Uri Caine's The Goldberg Variations, which follows similar treatments of Mahler and Wagner, and is criminally hard to find, mixes woeful blue notes, honking clarinets, boogie-woogie breakdowns and DJ Logic with Bach's intellectually masterful composition.

Or consider pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, the leaders of another, more visceral and less overtly intellectualized jazz clique. Shipp and Parker tend to expand jazz's traditions from within instead of adding ingredients from the larger musical stew. Right now Shipp is in the middle of producing The Blue Series for Thirsty Ear Records, a number of small band recordings that meld the blues with the free jazz and experimental traditions (click on "1_Blue Decco" to listen to the track). A Shipp mini-tradition is turning children's traditionals into dark, brooding wonders. On this clip from last year's Pastoral Composure, Shipp attacks "Frere Jacques." With Shipp dragging out the chords and pounding away at the lower register of his keyboard, trumpeter Roy Campbell begins with the theme before delving into an incantation, updating Coltrane's sheets-of-sound approach.

Perhaps one reason Burns chose not to include Zorn, Shipp, Parker, and their contemporaries is the characters don't fit into Burns' typography. In Jazz, white—and oftentimes Jewish—figures are described as practicing obsessively and bursting with ambition. Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and their kin are painted as materialistic obsessives. Indeed, Burns makes a point of noting how Goodman's father signed Benny up for a local band at his synagogue after learning that a neighbor's boys were earning extra money by playing music. Burns' description of black musicians, meanwhile, focuses on a preternatural, almost animistic talent; in his discussion of Coltrane's incessant playing, Burns alludes to Coltrane's spiritual nature—the music was in his soul—rather than his perfectionism. This neat dichotomy doesn't hold up with today's musicians. Zorn, Douglas, and Caine are white, Shipp and Parker are black, and all of them are continuing Charlie Mingus' fight to retain control of their own music (Zorn with his Tzadik label, Shipp and Parker with their independent or self-released albums). Half of Douglas' band is black, and Soul on Soul is a tribute to a female African-American pianist.

Interviews and segments on this bunch undoubtedly would have been interesting and maybe even provocative. (Shipp and Marsalis have been sniping at each other for years.) But they wouldn't have Burnsian narrative import or a straightforward message about race. Don't let that be a reason not to listen to their music. Their stories might not be as stirring, but their sound sure is.

E-MAIL

RECOMMEND... Get Slate RSS Feeds

Seth Mnookin is the author of the New York Times best seller Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts and Nerve Took a Team to the Top and Hard News.

Audio excerpts from: "Frère Jacques," from Pastoral Composure, by the Matthew Shipp Quartet © 2000 Thirsty Ear Recordings; "Blue Decco," from Blue Decco, by the Mat Maneri Quartet © 2000 Thirsty Ear Recordings. All rights reserved.

COMMENTS

Reader Comments From The Fray:

[Notes from the Fray Editor: There was a lot of enthusiastic, well-informed comment on this article, agreeing with it and disagreeing; some good threads; and plenty of recommendations of artists. We like the phrase "Flock of Seagulls of jazz"--we look forward to seeing this useful formation in other "Culturebox" topics.]

Burns' series is on the same station that is franchising the Antiques Roadshow. It doesn't take much McLuhan to understand that Burns frames everything in the rearview mirror. It is a sentimental and repressed view of our history, an attempt to make America into a cartoon strip that fits the sentimental and repressive mindset of its sponsors.

This essay is interesting, particularly if you wonder what John Zorn is up to these days--but Zorn isn't thought of as a Jazz musician everywhere. Out here in the boonies he is considered as much an offspring of Cage as of any Jass masters with Mississippi river water flowing in their veins.

If you understand what Burns is trying to do, he has done it well. But it is sepia-toning the image and putting it in a faux-stressed frame. Burns makes the real dangers of jazz safe for the 30-somethings hanging on to their college degrees and SUVs with totemistic faith in the American dream.

Real jazz lovers turn off the picture and turn up the soundtrack. You can do that with a Radio Shack receiver that gets TV channels on the radio--a perfect way to watch the real story in your mind's eye. No matter what framing devices Burns and his packaging team may apply to the visual and narrative choices, the music speaks for itself. Boy, does it speak for itself. As soon as you forget that you are talking about anything but Jazz.

--Zeitguy

(To reply, or to follow a nice thread, click here.)

When people start complaining because John Zorn wasn't included in a historical documentary about jazz, they should clearly be ignored. Ken Burns has made a documentary which serves as a near-bildungsroman, with jazz being the inspected character. The people who have created and changed that character need to be represented in that story, not everyone who ever came into contact with it. Burns has shown us the leaders of jazz movements and styles, people who will be remembered whenever jazz is mentioned (or should be). Zorn, while interesting, is simply not that important to the form. He's the Flock of Seagulls of jazz--an interesting historical sidebar, perhaps, but little more.

--Terry

(To reply, click here.)

(1/31)

What did you think of this article?

Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum

POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES