Jazz : An Illustrated History - Softcover

First off, let's get the kudos down: Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns deserve far more than simple gratitude for bringing jazz to the limelight with this lavishly illustrated volume. The book features among its 500-plus pictures many of the previously unseen shots of musicians and venues glimpsed in Burns's 10-part documentary, Jazz. (See our Ken Burns Jazz Store for the lowdown on the series.) Jazz: An Illustrated History follows the film episode by episode, and it's filled with rich historical detail in the early chapters. Like the series, however, the book trails off after a certain point in chronicling jazz's history. It gives background aplenty on early New Orleans music, the migration of jazz up the Mississippi to major urban centers, and the developments of swing and bebop. After bebop, the history gets a bit perfunctory. Dozens of major figures get mere sidebar coverage. Little is said of substance on Latin or Brazilian jazz, European contributions to the music, fusion, or umpteen smaller deviations from the mainstream. There are wonderful essays that highlight elements of jazz culture, particularly Gerald Early's consideration of race and white musicians in jazz and Gary Giddins's five-page essay on avant jazz. And there are fine sidebars as well. But developments during and after the 1960s are dealt with primarily in impressionistic guest essays rather than detail-oriented historical narrative. It is, of course, difficult to capture all jazz history in any single volume. So perhaps this ought to have been called Jazz: A Historical Appreciation, since the hundreds of images certainly create an intense sense of the music's milieu. --Andrew Bartlett

r Burton
6 cassettes/ 9 hours

Continuing in the tradition of their previous, critically acclaimed collaborations, Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward now bring us the history of the quintessential and first indigenous American music.  This dynamic and powerful narrative is brought to life by the remarkable men and women who have made their mark on the music and left a lasting imprint on our culture.  In words, we meet these larger-than-life personalities, including Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bix Biederbecke, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sara Vaughan, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, and many more.  Essays by Winton Marsalis, Dan Morgenstern, Gerald Early, Stanley Crouch, and Gary Giddins put the evolution of jazz in historical and cultural context.  Jazz, like the music itself is an exploration of the American experience.