18-02-2009, 04:11 PM
Mark,
In a word: travesty.
It is a survey course led by a blind surveyor. Key innovators are ignored, living legends who were in at the birth of stylistic innovations are cast out in favor of politically correct, market-friendly pseudo-experts ...
Burns commonly produces films that are ideal for CinemaScope -- wider than they are deep. But with Jazz he compressed the breadth of his product even as he maintained its customary shallowness.
An example: Burns chooses Wynton Marsalis to illustrate the groundbreaking rhythmic and harmonic aspects of Charlie Parker's music. And true to form, the Jive Ass of Our Time procedes to make minstrel show faces and jungle sounds in an insulting, ludicruous effort to shed light on bebop phrasing and rhythms.
At the time, Charlie Parker's protege, Jackie McLean, was alive and well and eminently qualified to discuss his mentor's genius in a manner that surely would have reconciled the academic and the artistic. Jackie was a noted educator and cultural historian/commentator as well as a world-glass alto saxophonist.
But in lieu of his eloquence, Burns went with a fool in blackface.
There are many more instances of such ignorance masquerading as enlightenment. How does Burns get away with it?
Just remember: Yuppies look to Ken Burns to tell them what they should be interested in. So you must understand the political subtext of Burns' productions if you are to answer my question.
The deep political reason why Jackie McLean was banished from Jazz is that he likely would have talked about Charlie Parker's c. 1940s insight that drugs were allowed into African-American ghettos in order to control their populations. He would have provided deep political context to a production that by intention was disinformative.
And that's just for starters.
Now I'm angry, and I'd rather send this off and go listen to Jackie's The Connection and Swing, Swang, Swingin'.
In a word: travesty.
It is a survey course led by a blind surveyor. Key innovators are ignored, living legends who were in at the birth of stylistic innovations are cast out in favor of politically correct, market-friendly pseudo-experts ...
Burns commonly produces films that are ideal for CinemaScope -- wider than they are deep. But with Jazz he compressed the breadth of his product even as he maintained its customary shallowness.
An example: Burns chooses Wynton Marsalis to illustrate the groundbreaking rhythmic and harmonic aspects of Charlie Parker's music. And true to form, the Jive Ass of Our Time procedes to make minstrel show faces and jungle sounds in an insulting, ludicruous effort to shed light on bebop phrasing and rhythms.
At the time, Charlie Parker's protege, Jackie McLean, was alive and well and eminently qualified to discuss his mentor's genius in a manner that surely would have reconciled the academic and the artistic. Jackie was a noted educator and cultural historian/commentator as well as a world-glass alto saxophonist.
But in lieu of his eloquence, Burns went with a fool in blackface.
There are many more instances of such ignorance masquerading as enlightenment. How does Burns get away with it?
Just remember: Yuppies look to Ken Burns to tell them what they should be interested in. So you must understand the political subtext of Burns' productions if you are to answer my question.
The deep political reason why Jackie McLean was banished from Jazz is that he likely would have talked about Charlie Parker's c. 1940s insight that drugs were allowed into African-American ghettos in order to control their populations. He would have provided deep political context to a production that by intention was disinformative.
And that's just for starters.
Now I'm angry, and I'd rather send this off and go listen to Jackie's The Connection and Swing, Swang, Swingin'.
Charles Drago
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene