‘Jazz’ series entertains and enlightens

Ken Burns’ fine 10-part PBS series “Jazz” is, as NBC likes to say, “must-see TV.” As with his previous documentaries on the Civil War and baseball, all of us can learn valuable lessons from “Jazz” about what makes American society and culture exciting and unique.

Compared to other forms of music, jazz is an art form that is widely loved and appreciated but not always understood. Knowing its roots and evolution enables the listener to better enjoy and appreciate it.

Designated a national treasure by the United States Congress in the early 1990s, jazz is a uniquely American musical art form. Arising in racially mixed urban communities throughout the country in the late 19th to early 20th centuries (if one accepts the thesis of Leonard Feather), jazz represents the best characteristics of the American spirit, including economy, intellectual curiosity, cooperation and an almost fierce independence. Musically, it is an art form without peer.

Jazz musicians (they usually simply call themselves musicians) have always made do with little. In many cases, denied access to quality instruments (Art Tatum was reputed to go over the keyboard of an unfamiliar piano prior to a performance, finding the poor-quality notes, and then not using them during his concerts), they nonetheless accomplished masterful musical feats.

In an age when fewer people attended institutions of higher education than the one in which we now live, these musical giants learned their art through hours of disciplined and rigorous practice, all-night jam sessions (an aspect sadly lacking from the contemporary scene), and by sitting at the feet and picking the brains of the masters. These were and are people driven by inner necessity rather than external motivators or the promise of financial reward. It has been said that there are few students of music as serious as those found in jazz.

Cooperation is an essential ingredient of this art. Jazz is a music in which the composition is created during the performance. It is, therefore, incumbent upon all members of a jazz organization to cooperate and interact fully with all of the other members at all times to create a collective work of musical art that (unless recorded) will never be heard again. This interaction extends to the performing environment (club or concert hall) and, certainly, to the audience.

Finally, these are independent people, living up to their own extremely high, self-imposed standards. In this short space, details aren’t possible, but a short (and quite incomplete) list of names will help: Louis Armstrong, the first great improviser; Duke Ellington, the man for whom the jazz orchestra was an instrument; Charlie Parker, who reinvented jazz, turning it into an art form; and many other greats, accused often of being at the very least, eccentric – Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and many others too numerous to mention.

Burns’ “Jazz” brings out these points and many others as well. Jazz is, in sum, an unselfish music created by Americans but which is now a world art, available to all who are willing to make an effort and risk a little. Though at this writing I have viewed just the first two episodes, the remaining episodes to be broadcast assuredly will provide the viewer with an entertaining and enlightening understanding of an important part of our nation’s history, music and people.

Karel Lidral is an associate professor of music at the University of Maine.