Music
Jazz: The Gift
The genius of jazz music
John Coltrane
Sarah Vaughan
Wynton Marsalis
Minor Hall
Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong
Chick Webb
Count Basie
Episode Three
Our Language
1924-1929
As the stock market continues to soar, jazz is everywhere in America. Now, for the first time, soloists and singers take center stage, transforming the music with their distinctive voices and the unique stories they have to tell.
Tonight we meet Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, whose songs ease the pains of life for millions of black Americans and help black entrepreneurs create a new recording industry around the blues. Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz star, who inspires others with solos of unparalleled lyric grace, only to destroy himself with alcohol at age 28; and the brilliant son of Jewish immigrants, Benny Goodman, for whom jazz offers an escape from the ghetto and a chance to achieve his dreams.
In New York, we follow Duke Ellington uptown to Harlem’s most celebrated nightspot, the Cotton Club. Ellington's compositions blend the individual musical "voices" of his band members in a way no one has imagined before. He gets the break of a lifetime when radio carries his music into homes across the country, bringing him national fame.
In Chicago, where he returns to find himself billed as “The World's Greatest Trumpet Player,” Louis Armstrong combines the soloist’s and vocalist’s art to create scat singing, then he charts the future of jazz in a series of small group recordings which culminates in his masterpiece, “West End Blues.” Called “the most perfect three minutes of music” ever created, Armstrong’s astonishing performance lifts jazz to the level of high art, where his genius stands alone.
Episode Four
The True Welcome
1929-1934
In 1929, America enters a decade of economic desperation, as the stock market collapses and the Great Depression begins. Factories fall silent, farms fall into decay, and a quarter of the nation’s workforce is jobless. In these dark times, jazz is called upon to lift the spirits of a frightened country, and finds itself poised for a decade of explosive growth.
New York is now America’s jazz capital. On Broadway, Louis Armstrong revolutionizes the art of American popular song and displays a flair for showmanship that makes him one of the nation’s top entertainers. In Harlem, Chick Webb pioneers his own Big Band sound at the Savoy Ballroom, where black and white dancers shake the floor with a new dance called the Lindy Hop.
But it is Duke Ellington who takes jazz “beyond category,” composing hit tunes with a new sophistication that has critics comparing him to Stravinsky. Now the nation’s best-known black bandleader, Ellington tours in his own private railcar, transcending stereotypes with an elegant personal style that disarms prejudice and inspires racial pride.
Meanwhile, Benny Goodman makes a name for himself, broadcasting big-band jazz nationwide, based on Fletcher Henderson’s arrangements. In 1935, Goodman takes his band on tour, but in most towns people ask for the old, familiar tunes. Then, finally, at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the dancers go wild when they hear Goodman’s Big Band beat. By the end of the night, the Swing Era has begun.
Episode Five
Swing: Pure Pleasure
1935-1937
As the Great Depression drags on, Jazz comes as close as it has ever come to being America's popular music, providing entertainment and escape for a people down on their luck. It has a new name now -- Swing -- and for millions of young fans, it will be the defining music of their generation.
Suddenly, Jazz bandleaders are the new matinee idols, with Benny Goodman hailed as the “King of Swing,” while teenagers jitterbug just as hard to the music of his rivals -- Tommy Dorsey, Jimmie Lunceford, and Glenn Miller. But the spirit of Swing isn’t limited to the dance floor. In New York, Billie Holiday emerges from a tragic childhood to begin her career as the greatest of all female jazz singers. And in Chicago, Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson prove that, despite segregation, there is room in jazz for great black and white musicians to swing side-by-side on stage.
At Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, however, there is room for only one King of Swing, and on May 11, 1937, Benny Goodman travels uptown in for a showdown with Chick Webb. It’s billed as “The Music Battle of the Century,” and more than 4,000 dancers crowd the floor to urge both champions on. But when it’s over, there’s no doubt who wears the crown.
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Latest comments
David Billing
Sat 10 January 2009, 10:01
Great series.
Is it available or to be made available on DVD?
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Eric Speak
Sat 10 January 2009, 11:49
David,
The series is available on dvd at the usual major online shops- if you have a look its called ‘Jazz - A Film By Ken Burns’ and retails at between £40-£55 for the 4 disc boxset.
Hope this helps and I agree, the series is fantastic, well done to Sky Arts for giving jazz lovers this!
Eric.
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loopguru
Sat 10 January 2009, 23:01
Great to have any jazz programme, but very disappointed that the last fifty years or so only gets a single episode. The problem is that an American-centric view of jazz is inclined to ignore the amazing European jazz and jazz/electronica scene that has built up over the last 15 years. What would be brilliant is a programme that explored this as well.
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Bill Davidson
Sun 11 January 2009, 00:20
This is the best programme on jazz that I have ever seen. More please!!
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J Bishop
Mon 12 January 2009, 09:32
I watched thsi on BBC ages ago and was delighted to see it reprised on Sky Arts
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Graham Clarke
Mon 12 January 2009, 17:12
A super programme. Really sets the scene for this great modern art form.
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Derek Tickner
Mon 12 January 2009, 21:33
Sorry !!! just read Eric Speak’s comment above, and your answer to my enquiry about ‘Box Sets’ it is out there already.
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Nigel Kemp
Thu 15 January 2009, 11:00
I have just found this site after e-mailing Hanna Fayaz but my comments are still the same. Utterly outstanding. As a swing and bee bob enthusiast it is gratifying to see Jazz being so well represented on this programe. More of the same.
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Paulus B.L.
Thu 15 January 2009, 18:34
Having been a jazz muscian, an Agent, a writer and whatever else in Jazz since the 4Os, I am just pleased with anything at all that even smells like JAZZ ! Perhaps once or twice on TV in the middle of the night if I am lucky, but it happens very, very rarely. Its OK, because I am.. used to it, so my thanks go to SKY ! PLEASE KEEP IT GOING NOW BOYS ! THANKS. Paul
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Sonia Ellington
Thu 15 January 2009, 18:37
One of the best Jazz documentaries I have seen on TV thank God for SKy + !! I can now watch it at my leisure
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JOHN DEVEREUX
Fri 16 January 2009, 23:58
Outstanding documentary,totally absorbing.I have had so much pleasure from watching this.Thank you so much.
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jean newton norfolk
Sat 17 January 2009, 13:07
What a wonderful series please can we have more swing and jazz
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Abbassi
Sun 18 January 2009, 20:28
Thankyou Sky Arts for a wonerful documentary, please keep more documentarty like this coming .
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Caroline
Sun 18 January 2009, 20:56
Just wonderful!
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Scott Ryan
Sat 24 January 2009, 18:55
Great series - BUT in the 1935/37 edition - althought the late, great Artie Shaw appears in a commmentary role his wonderful music - for some CRAZY reason - does not!? If you want to know what jazz is all about listen to Artie Shaw’s last recordings from 1953/54. Absolutely wonderful! Also in the same edition Billie Holiday is described as the “GREATEST female singer in the history of jazz”! Yes, she’s great. But PLEASE...that title belongs to another fantastic singer. The greatest woman singer of the 20th century: Miss Ella Fitzgerald!
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Patrick Taylor
Tue 17 February 2009, 16:24
Jazz-The Gift. Splendid! Too many talking heads,as usual these days, but this programme ameliorated that quite a bit by letting the music go on behind the talker - quite clear but without obscuring the words. Very clever.
BUT WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO RUN IT AGAIN - I MISSED EPISODE 4 . HOW LONG HAVE I GOT TO WAIT FOR IT?
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Sari from Sky Arts
Fri 27 February 2009, 10:01
For those awaiting a repeat of this series, we are looking at repeating Jazz: The Gift later on in the year.
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PacerB
Thu 6 August 2009, 21:26
When will this be running again?
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Tubbyshaw
Wed 7 October 2009, 10:35
Great series - more jazz from the archives please especially from the modal and hard bop era. Mmmmm… nice!
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David Corbett
Mon 12 October 2009, 10:20
I remember when this series was originally shown on the BBC, in fact it is a BBC co-production. It was shown late in the evening in irregular time slots. Ken Burns has made many definitive documentaries and this series is no exception. I bought the DVD Box Set when it first came out in 2001. At the time I think it cost about £60.00 but well worth the money. If you want a definitive history of Jazz, buy it or watch the series on Sky, but do not miss it.
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Patrick Skinner
Fri 16 October 2009, 13:38
A truly wonderful series which might just bring the beautiful American art form, jazz, to new generations. Garry Giddins - marvellous! A series like this, great though it is, can only scratch at the surface of what jazz meant to the radio and disc listeners of the 30s and 40s - with many great musicians like Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins and Rex Stewart missed out or hardly mentioned, and too much time, perhaps, given to Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman - but this is just an encouragement to search the web for the wealth of fantastic early and middle period jhazz that is available on disc or download. Repeat as often as you wish and, please, dig up and repeat more jazz footage - and don’t forget the Europeans!
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steve perry
Sun 18 October 2009, 16:20
brilliant series.
for once i wish the credits could be shown at the end in verrry slow motion
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