Rating: 
Summary: Jazzmataz
Review: The old saying goes that one should never talk about religion or politics in polite company. After reading several reviews about this series on this page, I wonder if jazz should be added to that list.In terms of background in the jazz genre, I fall somewhere between the wide-eyed jazz neophyte critics say this series was aimed at and the graying veteran who spends two or three nights a week listening to live fusion jazz or who rages at creator Ken Burns' exclusion of an obscure might-be bepop avatar. And from that vantage point, I think Jazz is pretty darn good. Of course I was puzzled by some of the choices Mr. Burns made in producing this film, the exclusion of some artists and derivative movements and the time spent on others. I raised my eyebrows at the heavy reliance on Wynton Marsalis' views and commentary, the long discussions about race, the glossing over of the modern era. My point is not to defend these aspects but only to say that it is easy to find fault in something of this scope. Producing this series was a mammoth undertaking: it is 19 hours of artfully done film, culled from thousands of hours of interviews, footage, and music. I cannot imagine anything of this scale being produced without also producing a legion of critics, and Jazz certainly proves that point. But I also fail to come up with any other single source where the viewer can see, hear, and learn so much about the greatest American art form. There is more to recommend it: this DVD collection includes a host of interactive features that make further learning and listening easy. In a specific DVD mode, viewers who click on the name of a song when it appears on the screen find that the film stops and a list of all the musicians who contributed to the piece appears, along with the recording studio, the year of production and other miscellaneous tidbits. I discovered that each song on each DVD is individually tracked, making it easy to jump from one to the other. Furthermore, the "extras" section includes three stunning full-length performances not included in the film (my favorite is Duke Ellington's "C Jam Blues") and a well-done 15-minute documentary on how the film was produced.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, so THAT's what it's all about...
Review: This is an awesome series. Every human being would get something out of seeing it! If you're not that into Jazz, this series will be an AHA! experience for you. It is interesting that the negative reviews of Jazz have a common theme: they focus on what is missing from the series: They mostly say, "Hey, where is my favorite musician? Where's my viewpoint, my song, my time period?" Music, as ever, is a personal thing. Ask 100 people what song/artist/era they like most, and you will likely get 100 different answers. I'm not familiar with the artists who are NOT in the series, those who ARE have fascinating stories and amazing musical interpretations to present. I loved every minute of it. This is one of the finest documentaries I have ever seen. It puts that little glowing box in my living room to good use! The music is ever enjoyable. The history, often shameful. The series, entirely unforgettable. Here's my advice: Watch the series. Meet some influential Jazz musicians, learn their personal stories, and fall in love with Jazz. Wynton Marsalis is a great guide who brings the past to life and gives it relevance. After that, you can explore further, if you like. Some of the other review suggest further listening/reading. This is a great starting point.
Rating: 
Summary: Missed opportunity
Review: I'll be honest; I'm a "jazz snob". I was really interested in this project when I first heard of it, though it seemed a bit ambitious. After seeing it (and trying to put aside any expectations I may have had), here's what I though: The good: this series got people talking about jazz. Up to the time of Miles' "Kind of Blue" this is a pretty good documentary. This series covers the early jazz years pretty well. The bad: lesser accomplishments of early jazz figures (Armstrong's "Hello Dolly") are featured at the expense of coverage of many influential musicians. Too many musicians who are still alive (Max Roach, Sonny Rollins) weren't interviewed, yet we have a Marsalis or Stanley Crouch speaking of them. There's a pretty blatant basis against free jazz and fusion which, like it or not, were the major innovations of the 60s and 70s. The ugly: Branford's caustic comments on Cecil Taylor (hey, when you've contributed something original to jazz, I might care what you think.) Suspicious lack of white musicians featured (even Coltrane admired Stan Getz, why is he not here?)Almost sensational coverage of who had drug problems. Too many film clips of performances cut short or talked over. Through out the series as a whole there is too much talking about jazz and not enough listening to it. To all the people who think we "jazz snobs" are being too hard on the series just because we're "snobs", you have to understand this, for many people this will be their only exposure to jazz. Though Burns may say he doesn't intend this to be the gospel of jazz, for most viewers who will never explore jazz outside of this series, it will be. It's not some petty dislike for Marsalis and Crouch, its disappointment that the rich and varied scope of jazz is filtered through those men's narrow definition of jazz. I also feel it was laziness on Bern's part that rather than seeking alternate view points (and in many cases speaking to the still living musicians) he just accepted the pre-packaged history of jazz according to those two. There are many other people, though not as famous as Wynton, who are equally qualified to give their opinions (which is what Wynton was doing, after all) that in the interest of bringing balance to this series should have been consulted. Though I can see some merit in this presentation, the fact that this is being used in educational situations and that there are so many people with no prior knowledge of jazz who will take this at face value really make the slant of this project that much worse. It is my hope that people who watch this series would be interested enough to investigate jazz on their own in a less biased outlet.
Rating:
Summary: Demanding, but awesome intro into the genre
Review: I came into Ken Burns' "Jazz" series to learn about jazz. Being an amateur musician myself and great lover of music, I found the challenges of jazz to be tough to overcome without some guidance. When I opened myself up to what this series has to offer, I have found not just an amazing amount of insights into the music and lives of the genre's greatest figures, but also a door into better understanding the context surrounding the music, the history of America driving jazz in times of boom or borrowing energy from jazz whenever it was down. From a perspective of a non-professional musician, the film opens up a whole musical world for you to begin to appreciate, but you have to give yourself into it: it won't get to you, you have to go to it, as W. Marsalis says at some point about all art forms. And "Jazz" certainly is one precious art form.
Rating:
Summary: Jazzed
Review: Ken Burn's documentary about THE American art form is from the first instance a monumental saga of undaunting honesty and the definitive history provided on film. If we could all get our heads out of our ***es, we would see that the insignificant quibbling and pedantic criticisms about this and that are exactly what they are: nonsense. No one will ever make a jazz documentary that covers every aspect of the movement, so if it stops around 1961, SO WHAT? My personal opinion is that most jazz after the 60s has been fairly insignificant compared to what happened in the decades before-- I mean really, will jazz ever make the groundbreaking never heard before strides in art that it did when Louis or Bird came out etc? All art forms reach the epoch and then slowly decline, as all empires do I might add. And what about Winton? Whatever my views are concerning his music, he provides an intoxicating energy to the film, partially due to the fact that yes he is an Historian when concerning jazz. Really, can you say that someone with all of his knowledge about jazz playing (which comes from studying the masters) is less informed than some white kid studying books at Yale about the history of jazz?
Which brings me to my one criticism of the film -- the boring monologues by the WHITE HISTORIANS. Hey, I'm white, I've got no problem with color, but jeez these guys could put you to sleep with their "intellectualized" ramblings which were seldom worth listening to. All of this being said, I've yet to run across any comments about the true significane of this film. FIRST: sure, it's about the music, and the footage, perofrmances, and interviews alone are invaluable. HOWEVER: this film is also undeniably an historical achievement, not only about jazz but about the history of America, dating back to before the Civil War. It's a history of the US, a history of African Americans, a history of white/black relationships in America, and a history of the incredible virtuosos that forever changed our world. More power to Ken Burns; those involved in the making this documentary; and foremost without question the special souls that created the music.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Series
Review: As a near-total jazz neophyte, I found this documentary to be a more than welcome introduction to jazz. Fascinating, accessible, filled with great music and film clips. I enjoyed the series immensely, and am forever in Mr. Burns' debt for introducing me to the joys of Thelonious Monk and Art Tatum, and for giving me a higher appreciation of jazz and the artists who create it. I'm sure there's a great deal more to be said than Ken Burns was able to say in this one documentary series, but what is said here is said with an admirable clarity and infectious enthusiasm. A very fine film, well worth watching. The DVD is well produced, and the transfer is excellent. There's a splendid special feature that allows you to see the name of whatever piece of music that happens to be playing at any given time. There are a couple of quibbles, to be sure. The series often seems in danger of becoming the Wynton Marsalis Show, as Mr. Marsalis appears in virtually every episode and gets what can feel like more than his share of screen time. Further, Mr. Burns has an irritating habit of bringing his films to a halt so that one of his experts can wax rhapsodic on Jazz as The Highest Single Accomplishment In The History Of Human Endeavor, The Most Significant And Sustaining Art Form Ever Created, Truly The Work Of The Angels and so on and so forth. As a whole, though, this is a fascinating and enlightening series. I can highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A must-see for any jazz musician or fan
Review: Although some of the criticisms of this series are valid, Ken Burns deserves accolades for this film!
Rating: 
Summary: Very dumbed-down, revisionist & manipulative.
Review: This series appears to have been prepared for elementary school children in immanent danger of being turned into dope addicts. You hear a lot more about a musician's drug use than you do about his/her talent or development. Careers than spanned years or decades are collapsed into a few colorful anecdotes. It's history as gossip writ large. Dates are transposed & contexts are garbled (one moment you're listening to a "discussion" of Charlie Parker & early Bebop then suddenly you're back with with Louis Armstrong & Jack Teagarden). Or Bird is recording with strings for Norman Granz (it seems) in 1949 (no way). In the segment about the 1940s someone characterizes Billie Holiday as having lost her voice. In the segment about the 1950s someone also characterizes Billie Holiday as having lost her voice. That's about all they tell you about her other than she had a serious dope habit & was raped as a teenager. Nice. This is history the way the Soviets used to package it: without life or understanding or empathy. But big on agenda. Well, no wonder. After all, jazz has always been about nothing but the underbelly of life, about rejecting the values & lies of the much-hallowed mainstream. As Diz might have put it, this exercise is strictly for the squares, man.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, but well intentioned
Review: There has probably been nothing that has polarized the jazz community as much as this documentary since Miles Davis et. al. went towards fusion in the late 1960s, and it's easy to understand why. This film falls squarely into the neo-traditionalist camp, as evidenced by the extensive reliance on Wynton Marsalis. To be sure, Wynton is a wonderful musician and a very articulate and intelligent person, but his opinions on the development of jazz are only one side of the story. His presentation as the expert on jazz par excellence left many, myself included, with a bad taste in our mouths. Particularly troubling was the complete dismissal of jazz since the early 1970s, particularly the gap between Ellington's death and the "triumphant arrival" of Marsalis, etc. in the 1980s. Not talking about the role of people like Woody Shaw, Roland Kirk, and others who struggled every day just to be able to play jazz is nothing short of shameful (as is the relatively brief amount of time devoted to Charles Mingus, almost universally regarded as one of jazz's towering figures). That said, there are many positive aspects to the film. I for one was not bothered by the emphasis on Louis Armstrong - there's a reason that nearly every jazz musician mentions his name as a primary influence - same thing for Ellington. I also enjoyed the intricate storytelling and personal narratives that sometimes get lost in the shuffle of history. Burns is a gifted film maker, but I think he got in a bit over his head on this one. If he were to re-make and expand the final episode to be more balanced and inclusive, it would greatly improve the series as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: "History," "Documentary," "Theory of" are not in the title.
Review: The negative reviews of this series assume that Burns is compiling a documentary, writing a historical survey, or undertaking some theoretical analysis of jazz. Burns is above all a biographer. His primary interest is in the life of a particular artist, solider, athlete, explorer, etc.: the overall trajectory of their lives--the choices they make, the risks they are or aren't willing to take, their sufferings in the face of prejudice, misunderstanding, and failure--and how the individual life fits within the larger social context. Hence his emphasis on annecdote, personal letter and photograph, character analysis, and why he has baseball players and actors and club owners as well as scholars and musicians commenting on these people. And why he traces the entire career of someone like Louis Armstrong or Billy Holiday, rather than devoting more time to contemporary muscians whose story it is still too young to be told. Everything else is secondary to this main concern, and to miss this focus is to miss the point of all Ken Burns' documentaries. To grasp it is to experience life within a wider, wiser, almost epic, context. The so-called jazz expert who is miffed over some apparent omission, or overemphasis, or seeming bias, is like the librarian who has all the books catalogued and all the facts at their fingertips but can't see that they might refer to something outside the four walls of their narrow expertise.
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