Rating: 
Summary: Great at what it is. Technical hints.
Review: Most of the griping about this set strikes me as beside the point. This documentary is a social history of the musicians who created one of America's greatest contributions to Art. It covers the years 1900 to around 1960. It is meant as an accessible introduction to Jazz. Yes I would have liked more musicological analysis, but I'm already a fan. Yes important figures were minimized by Burns' "great man" approach to history, but he's trying to tell an engaging story and he's only got around 18 hours to do it in. And yes, as a musical history, it emphasizes political concerns waaay too much; but this is only secondarily a musical history, Burns' primary concern is social history and in that case, racial politics are very much of the essence. I'm just thrilled to have all these great photographs and archival film in one handy package where I can easily access them and to have a fine engaging introduction to Jazz that I can show to my children and other "unenlighted":) individuals.One of the best pluses on the DVD is the "music information card mode"; turn this on and when a new piece starts playing in the background, the name of the song appears in the lower left corner of the screen, hit the "Title" key on your remote and see all the information on that track: recording date, label, musicians, composer, etc. Wonderful. Another reviewer mentioned the truly abominable "forced ads"; the usual track advance key is indeed disabled *but* try hitting the "menu right arrow" on your remote, it skips the ads on my unit anyway... strange choice, that.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Review: I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of watching these episodes. However, if his "documentary" was 5 years in the making, Burns should have spent another 5 years getting it right. Featuring the uneducated Wynton Marsalis in the role of New Orleans historian is almost laughable. Burns continues to tell the same story in different guises. But it seems that he has a reckless disregard for the truth, if it doesn't square with his point of view. In his baseball opus, Burns conviently omits that the Brooklyn Dodgers pushed Jackie Robinson into retirement. The Dodgers traded Jackie to the hated rival New York Giants. Clearly, Burns' theme is jazz = black. Wynton gives away that he is aware of the truth about Ellington, when the best he can come up with is that Ellinton is "indispensable." (The Lincoln Center Orchestra is nothing more than derivative Ellington.) Among my other biases is that if one is going to center one's story near Storyville, one should examine the life and times of Pete Fountain, a contemporary New Orleans jazz clarinet virtuoso. Fountain is the evolved Dixieland jazz descendant of Benny Goodman. Anyway, I believe one should save money by watching this DVD on Public Television and spend same money purchasing jazz CD's.
Rating: 
Summary: Where is Fats Waller?
Review: Maybe I've missed something but in the narrative on Louis Armstrong's rendition of "Black and Blue" there is no mention of the song's great composer. I've not seen all the tapes but I think that any mention of great black composers that doesn't put Fats up there with Duke, or maybe even ahead of him, is a terrible oversight. Would like to hear comments from anyone else that has noticed this.
Rating: 
Summary: Rating the DVD not the Series
Review: I am not going to contradict the reviewers that have raved about the series, I think that as a Television series it's very good. But if Ken Burns considers himself a filmmaker then he should be using the full video and audio range available to filmmakers. The Full-screen format and the flat sound were very disappointing. The sound recordings of the music weren't even stereo. Let alone worthy of the reproduction capable to DVD. And a note to PBS, I really really really Hate, the forced commercials at the beginning that went on and on and on. With, of course, the fast forward and skip buttons disabled. I'll think twice in the future before I buy a DVD associated with PBS.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm *VERY* Impressed ! ! !
Review: I have been watching the documentary episode by episode... I am a Jazz educator, a Jazz musician, and have spent alteast the past 10 years researching the history of the music for my own self pleasure. -- I am also a tough critic, and have found many documentaries in the past to SKIM the surface... this one doesn't. Although it doesn't exactly present anything new or rewrite the history (though you would have to spend years and years to pull a similar quantity of facts together, and you'd probably never get your hands on all the rare footage), it really digs down into the roots and sounds. Because there is so much content and it is so voluminous, the DVD (as opposed to VHS) format seems ideal to make it easy for referential navigation, though each episode is so brilliantly woven, I can't see anyone really wanting to jump around that much. Though in the past I haven't been a big Marsalis fan, his commentaries and narratives SHINE as do the other critics. Burns tells the story of Jazz socially, culturally, historially... from the perspective of nation, community, individual, style, race and more. Not since Leonard Feather wrote The Encyclodpaedia of Jazz has a more important contribution to the history of the music been made. TIPS : For purposes of referential nagigation, consider the DVD. The series is like owning an all in one museum of Jazz and reference library... Also, check out Berliner's THINKING IN JAZZ if you're interested in a deeper understanding of the creative and pedagogical proces that goes into the making of a Jaz musician Finally, keep the music alive by supporting your local Jazz scene - - There are many unsung heroes that didn't make the show... and some might be living or performing in your own backyeard. - - I live in Philly, which at one time was one of the major jazz capitals of the world, and a few years ago, Temple University just zapped half our Jazz programming ! ! ! Can you believe that ????????
Rating:
Summary: Less Gushing, Less Marsalis, More Exposition
Review: The documentary is very good and, for those willing to clock the hours, as good an introduction to the subject as there is. It's a natural multimedia candidate, and the creators have risen to the occasion admirably. The problem I have with Jazz is its omnipresent and thick layer of fawning. The superlatives and hyperbole cancel each other out after a certain point, and at that point, description becomes meaningless. Louis Armstrong was "sent from Heaven to make people happy." Ah, whatever. Those kinds of statements are very much the expositional norm, and they eat into time that could be better used for analysis and explanation. Duke Ellington: America's greatest composer. These epithets would be less objectionable if they were followed up by something substantive, by the kinds of examples high school students are taught to use in term papers, but they're not. Neophytes and dedicated fans alike would be better served with critical analysis and not an extended press release for what some think is a dead genre. Indeed, it's as if Burns and company are doing PR for Jazz itself. And I, for one, would respond better to an editorial than to advertising. Isn't that odd, when you think about it? A documentary that substitutes superlatives and hyperbole for critical analysis? And it's not as if we're getting "just the facts." Those presenting the facts are very, very biased and have a collective career interest in promoting the mystique and mythology of Jazz. A corollary of this first complaint has to do with Burns's over-reliance on Wynton Marsalis for commentary. Marsalis's presence here is nothing less than tedious. It gets real tired real fast. And Marsalis is another gusher. He gushes about every single figure in the history of jazz. Nobody has any shortcomings and jazz is nothing less than "procreation." That's all well and good, but Marilyn Manson fans probably say the same thing about his collected works. When I think of all the musicians who were excluded from this canon-affirming summation -- Bill Evans comes to mind -- the extent to which Burns lets Marsalis and company have free reign really rankles.
Rating:
Summary: Here we go again!
Review: Once again Ken Burns takes a subject and turns it into a race war. As with his other tired projects the subject get's lost somewhere inbetween. The narrator speaks with a finality that borders on the ludicrous. He sees jazz in black and white (no pun intended). This guy was the "king" of this, this guy "started this." He even has the nerve to say Billie Holiday wasn't a good singer! Through it all we have Wynton Marsalis, the guy who had a problem with Miles Davis, supposedly because Davis didn't stick with the Jazz format he saw as proper! But more likely because Davis could play Marsalis under the table. If you know nothing about jazz I'd say get this but take it with a ton of salt. This set drones on like his other sets, something like a ten hour funeral. Get the Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue. This was Jazz, the joy of music, not a tired documentary. And Stanley Crouch is a whitey hating GROUCH!
Rating: 
Summary: All heat, no light
Review: They say that a professional football game has 22 minutes worth of action spread out over three yours. In "Jazz" they spread it out over 17 1/2 hours. Whoever it was that actually made this film... should do a documentary on talking heads ... because you get enough hot air to refill the Goodyear blimp. If you're stuck for $140... watch it... but keep your finger on the fast-foward button.
Rating:
Summary: Burn's best (I think)
Review: I own every Ken Burns documentary and watch them continually, so my expectations were high for "Jazz". In my biased opinion, this is better than Baseball or The Civil War as far as the depth in which it delves into the personalities of the many jazz artists. Armstrong, Ellington, Holiday, Parker, Davis, etc. I have never really listened to "classic" jazz music, but this documentary really whetted my appetite to explore to the roots and pioneers of jazz. I think it will turn a lot of new people on to the older artists for the first time. Jazz is the grandfather of rock and roll, so it's interesting to hear the early artists that created the syncopated beat that started it all. Some more random thoughts. 1. HANDY TIP: If you buy the DVD, go to SCENE SELECTION at the startup screen and choose INTRODUCTION. If you choose PLAY JAZZ, you have to sit through about 2 minutes of "Funds for this program were provided by..." which is on every PBS program but this one is annoyingly long and it's on all TEN of the discs. 2. A neat feature of the DVD is that you can display the title of the song that's playing as background music. VERY NICE. This feature should be on every DVD documentary. 3. For those of you who watched "BASEBALL", notice how serious Gerald Early is in "JAZZ", he was so animated in "BASEBALL", constantly smiling, he's gloomy here. 4. There are little connections to other Burns' films, like "BASEBALL" or "Empire of the Air", it's fun to pick those out if you've seen them. 5. Every recent Burns film has a least one swipe at Republicans. Try and find the one in "JAZZ". 6. As it was in "Civil War" and "Baseball" the theme is the struggle against racism, and there's some pretty ugly examples of it here. White Americans prepare to feel guilty. Watch it on PBS first and see if you like it. I'd say it's a must for Burns fans.
Rating:
Summary: An Elegant Yet Incomplete Snapshot of a Century of Jazz
Review: Clocking in at just under 20 hours, I expected an exhaustive and complete overview of Jazz in the 20th Century. After having watched the whole thing, I now realize that is an expectation that perhaps can never be met. Ken Burns does a pretty good job at it, though, in all fairness. Never dull, this set is a sophisticated and engaging exploration of the evolution of Jazz from its roots to the present. It's perhaps a bit too obvious whom Burns lists among his personal favorites. Louis Armstrong is certainly a genius, perhaps even the pre-eminent genius of the genre, but I believe the completism of the series is compromised by an overabundance of coverage of him specifically (along with a few other greats like Duke Ellington). However, there is certainly never a dull moment, and perhaps for a mainstream document like this, the emphasis on the mainstream artists is justifiable. Burns unravels his story in a chronological and quite accessible way that is not over the head of the neophyte nor beneath the interest of the educated jazz connoisseur. Although far from perfection, this is a must-have for fans of jazz, documentaries, or American History.
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