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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 02-01-12 20:52
"Jazz schmazz?"
I just finished watching Ken Burns' mammoth 10 DVD "JAZZ" documentary. Exemplary stuff. Entertaining and (of course) highly educational as well. At times, touching.
I keep forgetting that Billie Holiday was only 44 when she died.
…
Why doesn't anyone do a project on that scale for American Garage/Punk/Post-Punk/Underground/Indie/Alternative music?
I'm thinking along the lines of a film version of "Our Band Could Be Your Life."
Is it because too many of the movers and shakers are still alive and kicking?
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-01-12 21:15
After 25 years of watching Ken Burns, and after finally watching the last Ken Burns piece that I hadn't yet seen (Mark Twain), I arrived at a realization: I think Ken Burns is boring. And only Ken Burns could manage to be derivative of Ken Burns. He's the Grateful Dead of documentarians.
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
it's educational
-The Pixies
Post Edited (02-01-12 21:20)
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-01-12 21:55
Overall I like Burns' Jazz and think it's worth watching. The only problem I have with it is that it gives greater weight to some eras of jazz (swing in particular, which gets essentially 3 episodes) at the expense of others (free jazz, fusion, which did produce some great music). That's because, as he's admitted, Burns knows shit about jazz, so he enlisted "experts" to help him shape the doc's thrust.
Those experts are Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch, whose knowledge of jazz is pretty unparalleled, but who are also unabashedly biased towards swing, bebop and, well, pretty much anything prior to the 60s. Their contempt of free jazz and fusion is well-documented, and the dismissal of Miles Davis' (Marsalis' hero, remember) electric years is particularly short-sighted and galling. Especially when he refuses to acknowledge that swing, while indeed boundary-busting and innovative as all hell in the hands of Duke Ellington and many others, devolved into pop cheese pretty quickly.
It's not unusual, of course, for any documentary to have bias, and it's only because Marsalis/Crouch's bias clashes with my own that I have a problem with the series. But at least Burns could've come to that bias honestly, instead of borrowing it from someone else and not bothering to question it.
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Author: MrFab
Date: 02-01-12 23:18
Not to mention the complete exclusion of international jazz artists. Why, because jazz is this 'uniquely American art form'? Uh huh. not mentioning the likes Jobim and bossa nova is like not mentioning The Beatles in a rock history cuz they weren't American.
Quote:
Why doesn't anyone do a project on that scale for American Garage/Punk/Post-Punk/Underground/Indie/Alternative music
But then it would be rendered boring, too!
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-02-12 07:45
"But then it would be rendered boring, too!"
Only if the camera spends hour upon hours scanning across old photos while actors adopt cheesy accents--punctuated by the occasional "expert" interview.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 02-02-12 11:08
Hmmm. Some said "jazz" and others said "schmazz."
...
Quote:
But at least Burns could've come to that bias honestly, instead of borrowing it from someone else
I'm not prepared to cull or defend biases based on how they're acquired.
Quote:
The only problem I have with it is that it gives greater weight to some eras of jazz (swing in particular, which gets essentially 3 episodes) at the expense of others (free jazz, fusion, which did produce some great music). That's because, as he's admitted, Burns knows shit about jazz, so he enlisted "experts" to help him shape the doc's thrust.
Prior to watching the Burn documentary, I was under the impression that the fusion era was one that the jazz world in general would like to forget ... regardless of the relative merits of the music. It's also a much more recent era and it's perhaps more difficult to get a grasp on.
Time will tell.
Quote:
Only if the camera spends hour upon hours scanning across old photos while actors adopt cheesy accents--punctuated by the occasional "expert" interview.
I'm also not bothered that the documentary was educational or that the film makers were obliged to pan across old photos (in fact those old photos are practically the best part). Form follows function.
Documentaries and history in general might indeed be boring by design. It's all already happened and all one can do is revisit the past.
Quote:
Not to mention the complete exclusion of international jazz artists. Why, because jazz is this 'uniquely American art form'? Uh huh. not mentioning the likes Jobim and bossa nova is like not mentioning The Beatles in a rock history cuz they weren't American.
Joao Gilberto and bossa nova are indeed glossed in the Burns film, as are the Beatles (oddly enough). The general impression I got was that the bossa nova dancing was tepid and boring.
...
I had a tenuous grasp on jazz going into the film and came out with a slightly better handle on it. It was time well spent.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-02-12 11:16
The only problem I have with it is that it gives greater weight to some eras of jazz (swing in particular, which gets essentially 3 episodes) at the expense of others (free jazz, fusion, which did produce some great music). That's because, as he's admitted, Burns knows shit about jazz, so he enlisted "experts" to help him shape the doc's thrust.
Prior to watching the Burn documentary, I was under the impression that the fusion era was one that the jazz world in general would like to forget ... regardless of the relative merits of the music. It's also a much more recent era and it's perhaps more difficult to get a grasp on.
Time will tell.
***Fusion, for good or ill, increased the commercial fortunes of jazz and brought it to a much larger audience. Even if you disregard what I would argue are the considerable merits of Miles Davis' work from '68-'74 and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, you can't just sweep it under the carpet if you're trying to give an honest portrait of jazz. Yes, a lot of it - hell, most of it - was dreck and gave rise the horrible subgenre of fuzak, but it's part of jazz history and needed to be treated with some respect. But that would never happen on Crouch/Marsalis' watch.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-02-12 11:40
"Documentaries and history in general might indeed be boring by design."
Um, not to me. I spend a good portion of my life and career doing historical research and going through old primary documents and photos--and I'm a huge fan of and collector of historical documentaries.
I simply don't like Ken Burns' work.
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Author: breno
Date: 02-02-12 11:40
Will Hermes has a nice little rant about the Burns jazz series in Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, which he feels is exemplary in the early going but then Burns pretty much completely ignores the jazz loft scene in NYC in the 70s in order to jump from the old timers straight to the Marsalises. It was kind of oh, let's see, Duke and Satchmo died, now what, grumble grumble grumble, namedrop Art Ensemble of Chicago flash their picture on the screen for a second, eh, whatever, grumble grumble grumble WYNTON SAVES JAZZ!"
Basically, it would be like if Jann Wenner got to produce his definitive history of rock & roll. It would boil down to "EVERYTHING WORTHWHILE HAPPENED IN THE SIXTIES, then nothing of any importance after that except Bruce Springsteen and okay, I'll pretend to care about Prince...grumble grumble....eh, hey U2, sure whatever show a picture of them if you want, I don't care...grumble grumble...Clapton is still alive as of 2012? can't we just finish up the show with him?...No? ah, okay if you insist, who is somebody younger to namedrop just so I can look hip...John Mayer!! THAT'S A WRAP!"
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 02-02-12 13:15
Quote:
Even if you disregard what I would argue are the considerable merits of Miles Davis' work from '68-'74 and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, you can't just sweep it under the carpet if you're trying to give an honest portrait of jazz. Yes, a lot of it - hell, most of it - was dreck
I'm sensing a tension in that statement.
So if we disregard Miles Davis' output from 1968 through 1974 and also leave Mahavishnu Orchestra out of the discussion ... what would be left for a neophyte out of that admitted heap of "dreck?"
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Author: MrFab
Date: 02-02-12 13:23
Quote:
The general impression I got was that the bossa nova dancing was tepid and boring.
Kinda like what Toland said about fusion - lots of dreck, in this case, every lounge singer on the planet massacring "The Girl From Ipanema", but he was still one of the all-time great jazz composers and, like fusion, it was a huge movement that was pretty much inescapable in the '60s, both in the jazz world and the mainstream.
But of course in my world, Sun Ra is as big as Charlie Parker.
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Author: nosepail
Date: 02-02-12 14:00
Man, early 70's fusion is a tough genre to emjoy. I also would focus on swing. But that's just me.
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Author: dj45rpm
Date: 02-02-12 14:25
As a jazz fan I tried to watch Jazz, but I turned it off pretty quickly.
I think that a documentary on "American Garage/Punk/Post-Punk/Underground/Indie/Alternative music" would be good, but Ken Burns should not be anywhere it. Maybe Michael A. knows someone who's good with a film camera....
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-02-12 16:51
I feel that way about swing. To be blunt, unless it's Duke Ellington, who would have been one of the great 20th century composers in any genre, it all sounds cheesy, even silly, to me.
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Author: totaji
Date: 02-02-12 17:24
I've only seen a hand full of the episodes...but I do think that jazz fusion and especially Davis' electric period, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Sun Ra, etc all are beyond the scope of the doc.
Jazz and baseball are both very much the sport of fuddy-duddies, dandies and the like. Guys who wear bow ties in public nowadays. Guys who wear seersucker suits. History buffs. Not political conservatives per se, but conservative minded people. People who don't listen to dub step... but drink mint juleps and appreciate "old-timey" stuff.
Down on the Corner could come out 20 years from now and would still be ahead of its time. I can enjoy old timer jazz very much...especially live but gimme Dark Magus any day.
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 02-02-12 19:05
Quote:
only Ken Burns could manage to be derivative of Ken Burns. He's the Grateful Dead of documentarians.
If he's derivative of himself ... wouldn't that make him the John Fogerty of documentarians?
…
As much fun as it is to bag on Ken Burns and jazz in general, I mentioned the film in the first place because it left me wishing the same attempt could be made to delve into the music that matters to me. Granted, I already know about this genre, whereas I was approaching jazz as someone who was a little green.
Still, it is fun to see that there are some opinions regarding Ken Burns' efforts.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-02-12 20:00
Speaking of documentaries, about a month ago I was watching the Scott Walker documentary (which I like a lot). My wife, who is not one of us, overhead Scott singing and said that it sounded like the Dracula musical song that Jason Segal sang in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." All in all, it was a fairly penetrating and funny observation from someone who wouldn't know Scott Walker if he served her coffee.
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Author: Nile
Date: 02-02-12 21:02
Michael Toland wrote:
> I feel that way about swing. To be blunt, unless it's Duke
> Ellington, who would have been one of the great 20th century
> composers in any genre, it all sounds cheesy, even silly, to
> me.
Art Tatum was amazing. But I'm generally of a similar mind about the big band sound. I tend to be into the hard stuff...bebop. I want my jazz to peel the paint off the joint and surprise me at every turn. To my ears most big band jazz sounds like dated dance music even when the composition is technically brilliant. And cool jazz usually makes me nod off, even the stuff I really like (yeah, I mean you, Dave Brubeck Quartet).
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-03-12 08:46
The first time I heard 60s Walker I had a similar reaction. It was a bigger struggle for me to wrap my head around his late 60s music than it did his more "challenging" work like The Drift and Tilt.
I assume you're talking about 30th Century Man. That's a great doc.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-03-12 08:47
"Jazz and baseball are both very much the sport of fuddy-duddies, dandies and the like."
The idea that Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Bud Powell and especially Charlie Parker are music for fuddie-duddies blows my mind, frankly.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-03-12 08:54
Chick Corea, John McLaughlin's solo work, Tony Williams Lifetime, Herbie Hancock - all of whom did some brilliant work as well as dreck. Ornette Coleman also did some fusion-style work. Some might argue for Return to Forever, but to my ears they've always sounded more like instrumental prog rock - impressive playing and compositions, but they don't swing.
Further on you get Terje Rypdal, Jack DeJohnette's Directions/New Directions, some of John Abercrombie's stuff, John Scofield, Bill Frisell (though those latter three at this point don't really play fusion anymore, even if they still play electric jazz), Ronald Shannon Jackson and, of course, Last Exit (more for power and volume than rhythms). Sonny Sharrock as well, though I'd argue that his best work Ask the Light is straight-up jazz that just happens to be played on an overdriven Les Paul.
Some might also argue for Sun Ra, but even though he used electric keyboards, I've always thought of him as free jazz rather than fusion. Brilliant free jazz at that.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-03-12 09:10
"Jazz and baseball are both very much the sport of fuddy-duddies, dandies and the like."
I'd argue that both are for the true and dedicated enthusiast and neither can just be jumped into as a fan; it takes some study, dedication, and rigor. This reality has kept me at a safe distance from jazz for some time, despite some concerted efforts to get involved. As to baseball, seeing my first game at Fenway at 3 set me off on a good start. (My youngest son saw his first Red Sox game two months before his 2nd birthday.) I wish someone had handed me Sketches of Spain as a kid instead of the Bay City Rollers greatest hits (or do I?).
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-03-12 09:19
"I assume you're talking about 30th Century Man. That's a great doc."
Indeed, it's extremely well done. . .
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Author: Paganizer
Date: 02-03-12 12:58
There have been topics that Burns has tackled that I was excited for, but that he went in a direction with the subject/materials that caused my loss of interest. But in the end, I'm just glad somebody is out there getting it done. It seems like nobody gets as far as Burns. (I know that's not exactly true and I think I'm just gloomy due to the GOP cycle's anti-humanistic aspects and the continued hurdles being placed before Christo in my home state). The Jazz series (I didn't see all of it) could have been better, but could have been much worse and few could tackle such a large subject as thoroughly.
Fusion is like alt-guitar/grunge bands in the 90s; there was suddenly a lot of attention and resoundingly a lot of less-talented results. But the good stuff is there, as always.
Our Band Could comes highly recommended from me but there is always going to be a "Why didn't you include..." list. Meat Puppets, X, Dead Kennedys,
breno, you're too kind to Wenner's mag
80's = Remember the 60s? So do we and here's a photo of the Bangles.
90's = Dylan AND Springsteen are still productive and here's a Spice Girls photo.
00's = Music is boring but at least it's an inroad to politics, science, and culture. Of which we are one step above the latest Batboy photo. Now here's John Mayer.
what he said:
My wife, who is not one of us
what I pictured:
"I wish someone had handed me Sketches of Spain as a kid instead of the Bay City Rollers greatest hits (or do I?)."
Somebody did do that to me. It didn't work. It was much better to hear it two decades on.
np:: Husker Du - Warehouse
New Pornographers - Together
Atlas Sound - Parallax
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-03-12 13:45
And you're right - a documentary series should be done on the music covered by this here site. I think it should, in fact, be curated by Ira and his peers, Azzerad included. There's gotta be a documentarian out there with interest in this.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 02-03-12 13:47
I liked Burn's recent series on Prohibition a lot - I really learned something. (Plus it was fun to compare it with the series Boardwalk Empire, which I love.) But I noticed in the credits that, despite the series having his name plastered all over it, it seemed that most of the heavy lifting was done by others. He was basically the co-producer and the marketable brand.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-03-12 16:13
"He was basically the co-producer and the marketable brand."
When he was getting footage in Elmira for the Twain documentary I was teaching there--he didn't even show up himself to do it; he just sent some of his people out to film and gather materials. And some of the stuff was fairly central to the documentary.
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Author: zoo
Date: 02-03-12 16:42
Quote:
Jazz and baseball are both very much the sport of fuddy-duddies, dandies and the like. Guys who wear bow ties in public nowadays. Guys who wear seersucker suits. History buffs. Not political conservatives per se, but conservative minded people. People who don't listen to dub step... but drink mint juleps and appreciate "old-timey" stuff.
I like jazz, but nowhere near to the degree that I like baseball, which borders on obsession. Just ask my wife. And my son. And my coworkers. And my friends. And my podiatrist. You get the picture.
Seer sucker suit: No
History buff: Yes (I have an MA in early U.S. history)
Political conservative: Yes
Conservative minded: Yes
Dub step: No
Mint juleps: No
"Old timey stuff": Only if you count vinyl records
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Author: rhettlawrence
Date: 02-03-12 17:03
The only Burns doc I've seen all the way through was the one on National Parks (which I thought was great), so I'm not really in a position to respond to whether the one on jazz was any good.
But you know what's the most interesting thing to me on this thread? That Zoo is a political conservative. Of course, I know that musical tastes know no political boundaries and all that shit, but for some reason, I find it really fascinating that someone who is a passionate devotee of Stuart Adamson might also be a Newt voter! It's a subject for another thread, perhaps, but I always just kinda assume that people who listen to the same kind of music as me are of the same general mindset (well, aside from those fucking skinheads, but then again, Skrewdriver never did much for me. Minor Threat did though).
Anyway, back to your conversation, gents....
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Author: zoo
Date: 02-03-12 20:40
I am not a "devotee" of any musician. I support many of the same things that a guy like Stuart Adamson (or Peter Garrett, to name another) supports...I just differ on the role of the government regarding those matters.
Post Edited (02-03-12 20:43)
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Author: rhettlawrence
Date: 02-04-12 03:04
No disrespect intended by the use of "devotee", Zoo, and that probably wasn't even the word I meant. And I have no idea what Stuart's political philosophy was anyway, so it wasn't even about how someone could like him while not agreeing with his politics. It was just an interesting revelation to me that we TP'ers are all over the philosophical map here and I should make no assumptions based on someone's musical tastes.
I must say, however, that I'm a little disturbed that you didn't take issue with the Newt allegation I threw your way! Say it ain't so, dude!
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Author: dj45rpm
Date: 02-06-12 11:49
I've actually gotten more into "early jazz" in the past few years, mainly the very early pre-big band stuff, but also Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, etc. There is actually some good stuff there that isn't overly "sweet" or ruined by what-passed-for-vocals-back-then (listen to some of the latter and you'll realize why folks like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were treated like the second coming).
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Author: Heff
Date: 02-06-12 13:00
Back in the mid-90's PBS showed a documentary - The History of Rock and Roll - 10 hour episodes on different parts. One part was on Punk and I thought it was pretty good - Jonathan Richman even starts it off! Punk
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Author: HollowbodyKay
Date: 02-06-12 15:10
Quote:
but then Burns pretty much completely ignores the jazz loft scene in NYC in the 70s in order to jump from the old timers straight to the Marsalises. It was kind of oh, let's see, Duke and Satchmo died, now what, grumble grumble grumble, namedrop Art Ensemble of Chicago flash their picture on the screen for a second, eh, whatever, grumble grumble grumble WYNTON SAVES JAZZ!"
I've been letting this post in particular roil around a few days and have concluded that:
1.) given that Sun Ra is omitted entirely (as clear a case of anti-Saturn bias as you're ever likely to see), it may be that "1970s NYC Lofts, Jazz scene in" might have been a little too esoteric for what was essentially a general primer on the entire form.
2.) Assuming that Armstrong and Ellington were the twin colossi jazz, their deaths did merit a sort of an "End-of-an-Era" treatment.
3.) I didn't get any sort of "Wynton Saves Jazz" feel to the section of the film that actually dealt with him. It felt more like desperation and barrel-scraping. But then again, you'll recall all the furor over Cobain when he reinvigorated "punk." Was that merited? It's a mildly different context, but still ...
...
I walked in knowing next to nothing and walked out knowing a bunch more. I don't know how you'd answer the technical complaints of "too much time spent panning across old photos" when all you've got as far as visual source material is old photos. That's another thread, perhaps.
Otherwise, I'm still glad I screened the entier 10 DVD monstrocity.
Besides, it was free.
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Author: erikalbany
Date: 02-06-12 15:16
{ I don't know how you'd answer the technical complaints of "too much time spent panning across old photos" when all you've got as far as visual source material is old photos. }
This is an oversimplification of my critique of Burns, which is a critique of style and narrative. We ALL have the same source material available to us--yet some renderings (eg, documentaries or biographies) are a whole lot better than others. This has to do with style and narrative and execution.
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Author: nosepail
Date: 02-06-12 15:31
Breno,
I recently picked up that Love Goes To Buildings On Fire book and it is amazing. It's making me excited to explore all kinds of genres that I pay little attention to, such as salsa, Cuban music, minimalist, early DJ/turtablism and, yes, the New York jazz loft scene. Hermes really leaves no stone unturned, and he does it in an interesting way. It is not, however, making me excited to revisit Patti Smith.
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Author: totaji
Date: 02-06-12 16:32
I love jazz, all types. I was talking about the purist or enthusiast... I think seeing Charlie Parker or Cab Calloway in their primes would be absolutely incredible.
As far as conservatism goes... I as liberal as I can be, I can find a lot of common ground with conservatives to relate about. I am not surprised that there are conservative+alternative people. Its a good thing really. Liberal+alternative=cliche.
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Author: breno
Date: 02-06-12 17:23
I think the smartest decision Hermes made with Love Goes to Buildings on Fire was to present it all strictly chronological - it really brings it home how incredibly fertile NYC was at the time by making you realize "Holy cow, while Television was doing this, Phillip Glass was ten city blocks away doing that and DJ Kool Herc was thirty blocks away doing the other thing, all of it simultaneously."
If he'd broken it up into "Here's a chapter on CBGB, here's Phillip Glass, here's the birth of hip-hop, I don't think it would have had the same impact.
It was that same ferment, of course, that spawned Trouser Press magazine.
Plus it set me straight on Patti Smith's first major songwriting credit - I'd always thought it was "Career of Evil" from Blue Oyster Cult's Secret Treaties. I hadn't realized she'd co-wrote "Baby Ice Dog" on Tyranny and Mutation before that.
On Sunday mornings, the local oldies station here in StL plays a random week of Casey Kasem's America's Top 40 from the 70s, which is fun to listen to in its own right, but it's even cooler when it's from the years 73-77, because now I can check the Hermes book and get a perspective on what the top 40 would have sounded like in the background during any given event in the book.
Post Edited (02-06-12 17:29)
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