I have seen the Ken Burns Jazz series twice now, and enjoyed it thoroughly, even though I am no afficianado on jazz. But every time I read about it somewhere, it is mentioned as controversial, or that it has many divided fans. Is this just elitism (doesn't include so and so and must be crap etc.), or were many important things glossed over?

Also, is the similar Blues special by Martin Scorsese out yet?

I'm familiar w/ the album releases that accompany the series, and I think it does a good job of introducing Jazz to new audiences. While I personally would never consider picking up one of their compilations, it's certainly an attractive package for those would-be Jazz fans who are too timid to delve into the often massive catalogues of great Jazz artists...so it's a necessarily evil I suppose.

well, honestly, I think he did a great job with the history aspect on video, and even with the wide variety of cd's he released. All the selections were Ace to me.

I guess I'll have to see the videos before I condemn the series, lol. All I know are the albums. :tongue:

I hate Ken Burns.

Everything he has ever done is aweful.

Jazz provides a horribly skewed history of jazz.

It annoyed immensely.

What parts annoyed the most? I didn't know much about jazz before, so it opened the eyes a bit for me. Some of the narration was annoyingly overdone, and I understand the other things he has done are similar.

Ken Burns' Jazz has so many faults.

The major one, is that in compacted the period between the mid 1960s-to today in like one episode.

The series ignores major artists, critisizes others (like Cecil Taylor), and ignores all european jazz altogether basically.

If you know anything about jazz, you know that 'Jazz' the series was aweful.

I did notice it centred on America, bar the trips to Paris etc. by some artists.