Jazz: A History of America's Music by Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Jazz: A History of America's Music
Book Review: The gospel according To Wynton
Summary: 2 Stars
Ken Burns is an engaging personality and easy on the ear as a public speaker. He is also a consumate salesman. I attended one of his "personal appearances" prior to the beginning of the TV series. He is a perky and positive elf when selling his point of view. In this book as in the series his view is that of Wynton Marsalis. Burns has admitted to not knowing much about Jazz before embarking on this project at Marsalis' suggestion. He takes Marsalis at his word on some highly debatable areas of Jazz. Overall the book is too long,unbalanced,wandering,inconsistent, opionated and surprisingly inaccurate. A perfect copy of the TV series. Most distressing are Gerald Early's racist comments regarding Big Band leader, Stan Kenton. Kenton is lambasted and singled out for not having enough Black musicians in his band, that his music didn't "swing" and basically attacked with the same tired litany of wrongdoings that chracterize these personal smears on a more global level. Kenton is totally ignored in the TV Series despite keeping Jazz on life support within college music departmentsts for many years. His innovative Jazz education programs and clinics deserve respect whether you care for his music or not. This type of digression is what hampers the book from its true goal of presenting all the history of Jazz.Book Review: Can you spell "HYPE"?
Summary: 1 Stars
Recommended for those who know nothing about jazz.Book Review: A must have for any Jazz fan
Summary: 5 Stars
Ken Burns has done another excellent job of bringing to light the unsung heroes of America's musical tradition. Jazz has not recieved much attention the last couple decades or so with the possible exception of Winston Marsalis and a couple others and while the main focus of the book deals with the roots and founders of Jazz (as well it should) it does skimp on present day Jazz. But the flavor of the book captures the smooth essence of what Jazz is and the pictures within the book make it worth the price alone. The book is well written and well illustrated and sure to please even those who are not familiar with Jazz.
I highly recommend this book to any music fan, especially Jazz, but it is sure to please anyone and it makes a great conversation starter. Finally glad to see Jazz get some good mainstream publicity with this one.
Book Review: Not perfect, but wonderful nonetheless
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book; it's well-balanced and has plenty of cultural perspective. There were lots of anecdotes and photos that I have never seen before (the pictures of blacks dancing at an outdoor big band show at Randalls Island in 1938 are almost worth the price of the book alone). The main criticism about this book (and the Ken Burns Jazz series in general) is that it gives short shrift to jazz since the 1960s. First off, as Ken Burns has said himself, he's an historian, so this project will obviously focus more on the origins and development of the music rather than present-day musicians. And as much as today's jazz musicians and fans like to tell you otherwise, there haven't been too many groundbreaking developments in the music since the free jazz movement of late Coltrane and early Ornette Coleman, or the funk/rock excursions by Miles Davis. Furthermore, and more importantly, jazz is simply no longer a big part of the present-day American landscape. Although jazz records rarely sold as well as more pop-oriented music (a jazz record that sold 20,000 copies was considered a big hit), the music was always written about in mainstream publications and talked about by just about anyone. Heck, guys like Miles, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Coltrane were occasionally featured on prime-time television. Today, the biggest (and perhaps only) jazz star is Wynton Marsalis, a bland neo-traditionalist who hasn't forged any new ground himself. For myself, I'd rather read about Satchmo, Bird, Billie Holiday and Monk.Book Review: An Essential Jazz Book for Your Jazz Collection
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a rich, outrageously illustrated jazz book. You have not seen many of the photos in the book. If you have a jazz library, then Jazz will be a wonderful addition that even non- jazz persons will pick up from your coffee table.