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If you are new to jazz or just looking for a survey of its history, this is an excellent compilation of recordings and companion book with a history of the music and its musicians. Highly recommended.
Most notably, though I am not a huge fan myself, Duke Ellington should have been pedistaled to the same heights that Mozart, Bach, Ravi Shankar or The Beatles typically are. I admit that I've watched and enjoyed some of this set. Similarly, the films failed to recognize much of the social and philosophical significance of the music so commonly discussed by the artists themselves. However, it is terribly nostagic and fails to emphasize the true significance of any of the artists. I question how much Ken Burn's even likes jazz. In the end (which comes a lot sooner than expected), if you exclude the last couple of discs and call the film Jazz: The Early Years I'd probably recommend it. Unfortunately, it was kind of like a history of Western European music that fails to mention anything past Beethoven.
Although the set offers only a superficial coverage of any artist or era, taken as a whole the set partially compensates for this in its breadth. I bought this set despite my distaste for the marketing strategy used that features Ken Burns name more prominently than the series artists. Listening to the five disk set straight through provides a means to witness the development of this great music both chronologically and chromatically; a century of development boiled down to five hours of listening. I wonder what Miles or Bird would think of their music being sold as "Ken Burns Jazz". To anyone reading this who watched his PBS series: notice a little irony here.Having got that off my chest, let me say that I'm still glad I bought this set after all. The experience was memorable for me, a long time jazz fan with listening habits usually more tightly focused on particular eras and sub-genres.Final note: the last disk (#5) is responsible for about 40 years of music history and, not surprisingly, does an unsatisfactory job of it. Fans of 1970's jazz will be particularly disappointed.
As a seasoned jazz listener, this is a fairly disappointing boxed set. If you are feeling nostalgic for the music of the 20s, 30s and 40s, or know nothing about jazz and want to start somewhere, I guess this isn't terrible.many of these recordings are perfectly fine and the musicians perfectly respectable. It vastly overemphasizes the early decades, big-band, and dance music to the exclusion of the more core group-improvisatory material. The discs run in roughly chronological order and it takes until the last disc to get out of the sixties. If you're thinking of getting this for someone who actually knows something about jazz, do them a favor and avoid this. They'd be much better off with 2-3 cd's that came out in the last year than a smattering of backfill that probably substantially overlaps cd's they bought years ago because they thought they should have some of X but never listened to more than once or twice.
Jazz doesn't need promotion, you either "get it" or you don't. Casual jazz listeners don't really understand the music, because if they did, then they wouldn't have done such a terrible job of putting together such a collection.
To me, Burns is a very misguided figure and hasn't really done the research about jazz, but I'll save that argument for another time. Let me just say that I'm not too impressed with the series "Ken Burns' Jazz." It was a pretty hack job and really didn't cover all the bases in my opinion.
Being interested in jazz has more to do with passion in my experience. The music on this box set, while most of it is indeed great and timeless, it fails to capture the true essence of this music I think.
I think if anyone is interested in jazz music should start with Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue" recording and go from there. Jazz cannot be marketed and that's the problem with these record companies.
I wouldn't waste my money or time on this box set.Some obvious omissions: Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Freddie Hubbard, Horace Silver, Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan, Jim Hall, Bobby Hutcherson, etc.
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