MovieChat Forums > Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns (2001) Discussion > An Unforgivable Exclusion

An Unforgivable Exclusion

posted 18 years ago by smulkin
16 replies | jump to latest

Why was Oscar Peterson mentioned not once in this documentary? I know that even with nine DVDs it is impossible to cover everyone, but really.

Oscar Peterson played with almost everyone important in modern Jazz including Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, the MJQ, Louis Armstrong, Sonny Stitt, Roy Eldridge, Jo Jones, Clark Terry, Stephane Grapelli, Roy Hargrove...the list goes on.

In fact, his huge discography doesn't even begin to cover his recorded output because of the number of other people's albums he has appeared on, yet he is not even mentioned in Burns' documentary.

Is it because he's Canadian?

[–] DCroese 18 years ago

Thats odd indeed. Oscar Peterson was, and still is an icon. He could be mentioned.
There's more stuff that doesnt seem to be given much attention. Just to name one thing: fusion. It appears to be jazz to me=), but with people like Wynton Marsalis (i really love his music, but he is a very conservative man) besides you that stuff slips away easily.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] joekiddlouischama 18 years ago

I agree with you. Burns, influenced by Marsalis, presents the myopic idea that the free jazz of the sixties and the "fusion" of the late sixties and seventies isn't real jazz and is thus worthy of disdain. The same point is made in the companion cofee table book.

[–] smulkin 18 years ago

I recently saw Herbie Hancock do "Headhunters '05" at the Tokyo Jazz festival. Roy Hargrove, Marcus Miller, Terrance Blanchard, Gary Burton, and several others were all there. He is truly the elder statesman of Jazz now.

Certainly not Stanly Crouse!

BTW - I disagree about the series spending too much time with the early history of Jazz. I think the stories out of that era have the best dramatic value and thus make for a better film. I mean, seriously, you can't beat the gunfights of Sydney Bechet.

The two best books I've read about jazz are Miles: The Autobiography and Alan Lomax's The Fortunes Of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creol and "Inventor of Jazz".

[–] jazz_man1 18 years ago

They also left out pianists like McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, and Hampton Hawes.

The final episode in the series was totally off the mark. when they were talking about Bitches Brew they relied on commentary almost exclusively from Wynton Marsalis and stuck in about 20 seconds worth from Herbie Hancock. Considering that most of the people who played on that record are still alive, I think its a real disservice to the subject.

And they were wrong about Louis Armstrong having the last genuine hit record for a jazz artist with 'Hello Dolly' in 1964. Weather Report had a number one hit record with 'Birdland' off the Heavy Weather album, but WR weren't even mentioned once despite being one of the most popular jazz groups of the seventies and eighties. Utter nonsense.

[–] DrR440 18 years ago

The series DID make peripheral reference to Bill Evans as Miles Davis's pianist, as well as other sidemen mentioned in the prior posts.

I suspect Burns' intent was to focus on movement or seminal artists like Armstrong, Parker and Davis and their personal triumphs and foibles rather than an encyclopedic enumeration of every great jazz artist. The series could have taken up 20 discs!

I have come across a jazz radio station thread that contained numerous pans of the series, however, so Burns' clearly didn't please everyone. The "Risk" section dealing with the incursion of heroin in the lives of so many jazzmen was particularly troubling--and engrossing.

Burns should, all the same, be credited with dealing with the racial component of the music as well as his series on the Civil War and baseball. Race remains this country's unresolved issue.

[–] jazz_man1 18 years ago

Yeah, Bill Evans was stuck in for 90 seconds in reference to Kind of Blue and as to show that Miles wasn't a racist (a bizarre and untrue allegation). In any case, Evans deserved much more screen time, he was a crucially important musician who carried on the legacy of both Art Tatum and Bud Powell.

I agree Burns obviously couldn't mention every single great jazz player but the episode dealing with jazz after 1960 was incredibly myopic and showed how little Burns knew about the music (which he admitted). By relying solely on Marsalis, Crouch, Giddins, and other conservative jazz critics, he left out so much great music.

[–] BernardHermann 18 years ago

In addition to the small amount of time given to Free and Fusion. They actually have Branford Marsallis say that "nothing happened in the 70s." They act like the only thing that happened in the 70s was Dexter Gordon returning to America and the only thing in the 80s was Wynton Marsallis. Gee, I guess Pat Metheney, Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Dave Holland, Chick Corea, John Abercrombie, Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Coleman, Kenny Wheeler, David Murray, Ornette Coleman's Primetime, Freddy Hubbard, Jaco, John McLaughlin, Tony Williams and MANY others don't count.

[–] jazz_man1 18 years ago

Your totally right DrOrpheus! If you want to see how biased the people on Jazz were, check out the interview transcripts on the PBS jazz site. They didn't include any of Branford Marsalis' comments praising fusion groups like Weather Report, Mahavishnu, and Return to Forever. Wynton Marsalis even stated that he hated 'motherf-----'s like Joe Sawinul' (Marsalis was unable to recall the Joe Zawinul's name')

One thing that annoyed me about the series was that they didn't even talk about Miles' comeback in the 1980's or his death in 1991. I thought they would have touched on his passing in the same way they did with Armstrong and Ellington, as I think Miles' stature was in the same league as Duke and Louis. I remember Pat Metheny saying that the Jazz world hasn't had a high profile since Miles died in 1991.

[–] ChuchaMunga 12 years ago

I must say that as someone who enjoyed pretty much ever bit the new things this series showed, I am not shocked that people don't listen to jazz now.

If the people who love it the most, the ones who post here, have this attitude of exclusion and clique oriented groupthink, I can see why it is now considered an anomaly by most people.

I think that the loose ends that people are here whining about would never have even happened, as in would not have been possible without the essential history, which I for one have just been exposed to. Now it is a launching point for discovery, so why poke people like me in they eye.

Why not explain it to us? Instead of reminding us we are not in club, we could be friends.

Maybe everyone else isn't the ***hole

[–] MrBook_ 13 years ago

On the board for Miles here on IMDb, somebody quoted an interview where the interviewer asked Miles, "Do you hate white people?", and he responded, "Not all the time."

Get on up.

[–] TruthWinsOut 17 years ago

I'm sure Oscar would have been mentioned if it wasn't for the genius of Art Tatum who proceeded him. Both are amazing artists, but if I had some constraints on time and had to choose between the two of them, I would have had to go with Art. Nevertheless, I have more Oscar Peterson in my cd collection than Tatum. How about that. "Very Tall" with Milt Jackson is a classic.

[–] trochesset 16 years ago

The birth of Jazz, was far more important for jazz, and America in general, than was the Jazz of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So it has to recieve more coverage. As well, you have to consider time constraints, and the fact that Burns is trying to create something dramatic out of this, and not just and encyclopedia.

Thirdly, I think I am more along the lines of thinking with Marsallis, in that this documentary is about Jazz, and that while 'Free Jazz' and "Fusion" may claim to be Jazz, its really no more related to Jazz than country music or hip-hop.

[–] M_Qtips 14 years ago

That's absurd - but no more absurd than saying Bebop isn't Jazz, which I also saw around here somewhere. Free Jazz and Fusion developed later as Jazz forms - but Jazz didn't start and end with what was created in the first three decades of the 20th century. They share all the important qualities of jazz... some would say Free Jazz in particular is more "like" Jazz than any other Jazz subgenre.

[–] bradford-1 12 years ago

The subject is so large, it would take more than 10 episodes to REALLY blanket the music. I would bet anything that the outtakes would add up to two 90-minute episodes by themselves. I'm a big band and hard bop lover, but even I thought post-1970 jazz was given the shortest of shrifts. I mean, why have an anti-fusion guy like W. Marsalis discuss fusion when people like Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny and David Sanborn were alive and, one assumes, willing to be interviewed?
I'm sure Burns and company must've known that there was no way to satisfy the vast jazz community.

"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

[–] activista 8 years ago

It would have been nice if they included some female jazz artists too, like say, for example, composer/pianist Geri Allen, Straight Ahead (an all-female jazz band who, like Allen, are from Detroit) and Alice Coltrane, who played in her husband John's band, but was also a solo composer and musician in her own right (I'm gonna have to check out some of her stuff,too.) Or Shirley Turrentine, the main organ player in her husband Stanley Turrentine's band. Or bassist/singer Esperanza Spaulding,too. BTW, has anyway seen the new movie about Miles Davis called MILES AHEAD, and if so, what did you think about it, Mr, Herbie Hancock (who came of age as a musician playing with Davis in his younger years)does a cameo with other jazz musicians at the end of the film--which was pretty good.