Jazz (2001)

"Gumbo" traces the roots of jazz from the 1800s to 1917. The viewer will catch glimpses of Jelly Roll Morton, who erroneously claimed to ha…

How can one explain the genius of a Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington? Blessed with skill and talent far exceeding their peers, one can onl…

Colorful characters like the tragic Bix Beiderbecke, powerhouse Bessie Smith, and the braggart Jelly Roll Morton, make the study of jazz fa…

"The True Welcome" continues many of the stories begun in Episode 3, following several troubling years for Louis Armstrong (who was arreste…

1935 was the year that swing became the most popular music in the country and that the king of swing, Benny Goodman, became a matinee idol.…

Swing would be reacquainted with its blues roots by way of Kansas City, when Count Basie and the Barons of Rhythm brought their hot sound t…

"Dedicated to Chaos" finds jazz musicians teetering on the brink of the modern era, fighting against the straightjacket of clichéd, big ban…

The bop revolution’s influence would spread to other musicians, but unlike swing, it would never become a popular music. The rapid-fire sol…

Critics who had believed that Charlie Parker was "too much" musically, could not have welcomed the arrival of Ornette Coleman. Coleman and…

Obviously Ken Burns knows that he can’t fit the last thirty-nine years of jazz history onto two hours of video tape, so from the outset, th…