"Jazz" (2001) TV series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

8 January 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | History | Music

Plot:

A survey of the musical form's history and major talents.

Plot Keywords:

African American | Jazz | Singer | Singing | Musician

Awards:

Nominated for 5 Primetime Emmys. Another 1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Keith David

...

Narrator (10 episodes, 2001)

Runtime:

114 min (10 episodes)

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Gilmore Girls: Tippecanoe and Taylor, Too (#5.4)" (2004)

A great intro in Jazz and its history

Don't bother with the U.K. version (12 hours) buy the USA version (19.5 hours) it contains more and can usually be found at lower cost.

Covers the birth of jazz, swing era, move to bebop, free modal very well, but there is only scant coverage of more modern moves in the field of jazz.

Mr Burns has argued that he is more of an historian than a critic and as such he can only really deal with the phases of jazz that are from the past. This line of reasoning is, I think, not un-reasonable.

A nice touch on the DVDs is that when a piece of music is playing then pressing the "info" button on the DVD or its handset, brings up a screen about the music being played, e.g. title of music, who wrote it, who is playing, when was it recorded, etc.