Posted by Sol Helfand on February 03, 2001 at 09:30:30:
My criticism of Burns is that his coverage of the
jazz "umbrella" was much too narrow and limited to
just a few of the jazz greats. He could have spent
less of the 17 1/2 hours on Ellington, Coltrane,
Parker, etc and spent a few minutes on some of the
other jazz notables:
Singers-Dinah Wahington, Bing, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme.
Pianists-Oscar Peterson, Nat King Cole, Marian
McPartland, Errol Garner, Ralph Sutton, Dick
Hyman. Why doesn't ragtime and boogie woogie
fit under the jazz umbrella?
Reeds=Stan Getz, Buddy DeFranco, Ben Webster,
Illinois Jacquet.
Guitar-Django Reinhardt, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis,
Bucky.
Violin-Joe Venuti, Spephan Grappelli.
Don't these and so many other jazz notables,
many who played during the past 30 years, deserve a
brief mention in a history of jazz? Doesn't dixieland
belong under the jazz umbrella? How about composers
of the hundreds of jazz "standards" - Gershwin, Cole
Porter, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael?
I would give Burns an A+ for effort, an A+ for
generating wider interest in jazz and improving sales
of jazz recordings, but a B minus for coverage. It is
gratifying that so much time, money, and effort was
devoted to bringing jazz before such a wide audience,
but it is unfortunate that the audience was not
exposed to a a more inclusive jazz unbrella.