CONEY ISLAND

nies and musicians' families on copy-
rights to get the most favorable deals
for approvals and use on TV. "On a
project like this, there's a lot of
behind-the-scenes work that's not too
glamorous, but it has to be done to
make the program a success," said
Novick.
In the early 20th century the attrac-
tion of jazz for Jewish families was dif-
ferent from that for gentile families,
she pointed out. "The WASP families
frowned on jazz and didn't want their
children associated with it.
"But the power of jazz was an attrac-
tion for the immigrant Jewish families
and gave them — along with black
families — relief from life in the ghet-
to. Because discrimination prevented
their children from getting profession-
al jobs, many turned to music careers,
and jazz benefited."

About The Program

While the jazz genre has featured many
Jewish musicians through the years —
clarinet greats Benny Goodman and
Artie Shaw, tenor saxophone player
Stan Getz, flutist Herbie Mann, pianist
Joe Bushkin and drummers Buddy
Rich and "Tiny" Kahn, the latter a
400-pound percussion wizard, among
them — black musicians and their tal-
ents stand out in the series, just as they
have dominated jazz music in the
United States for almost a century.
Current trumpet star Wynton Marsalis,
senior creative consultant for the series,
sets the tone in the opening show when
he declares, "The power of jazz music is
when diverse people get together to create
the art of ja77 — black and white, men
and women, old and young.
"They create a language of music.
Jazz really objectifies America. It's an

art form that gives us a painless way of
understanding ourselves."
The program, in segments divided by
years, follows the growth and develop-
ment of jazz from 1917 to the present,
with an emphasis on the earlier years.
The story meanders from the streets
of New Orleans to Chicago's South
Side, where trumpeter Louis
Armstrong first became famous; from
Prohibition-era speakeasies and houses
of ill repute to the wide-open Kansas
City clubs; from the elegant Roseland
Ballroom in Times Square, where only
whites were allowed to dance, to
Detroit's own Arcadia Ballroom and
Harlem's Savoy Ballroom, where peo-
ple of all colors mingled.
A long segment on the 1920s Jazz
Age and early 1930s features
Armstrong — rated by jazz aficiona-
dos as the greatest of all time. It is fol-
lowed by the swing era of the mid-
1930s — resulting in 50 million swing
records being sold by 1939.
The jazz business suffered during
World War II. Thirty-nine bandleaders
enlisted in the armed forces, many
forming new bands and touring bases.
Gas rationing restricted band travel
anyway, while production of records
dwindled because of a shortage of shel-
lac needed for the war effort. Blackouts
and curfews shuttered nightclubs.
Those jazz clubs are the subject of a
segment on "the Street" — 52nd
Street in New York City, where many
jazz-only clubs flourished. They creat-
ed such stars as vocalist Billie Holiday,
the queen of jazz, and trumpet master
and bee-bop pioneer Charlie (Bird)
Parker, who, like too many other jazz
artists, destroyed himself with drugs.
"The Street" was called the "candy
heaven of jazz" by jazz buffs, not the least

Left to right, from opposite page:

Artie Shaw's band was the first white
group to employ a black female
singer, Billie Holiday, pictured here.

Jazz journalist Floyd Levin with
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong on
the trumpet player's 70th birthday:
"His status as jazz's most visible
personality — its first and greatest
celebrity — often overshadows his
accomplishments as a musician,"
writes Levin. "But each phase in his
long career is a vitally important
part of the music's _history"

Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman,
1939: Two of the leading jazz
bandleaders of the day at the
Waldorf in New York City.

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Filmmaker
trtv
Ken Burns: A process or.,

ISTORY

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Corner of Maple (15 Mile)
Bloomfield Township
(248) 646-8568

MTS. Lat LJA

Ken Burns admits it.
"I've been making the same film
over and over again," he said in a
recent interview.
He calls that film Who Are We?
He sees each of his historical
documentaries
beginning with
Brooklyn Bridge, through The Civil
War and Baseball, to his newest,
Jazz --- as a piece of a mosaic
forming a portrait of the
American people.
"I keep asking this question," he
said. "So in some ways, what I've
been doing for 25 years is practic-
ing a curiosity about America."
He began making films, he said,
because "I wanted to be John
Ford.
"I wanted to sing the epic sto-
ries of Americ.a. Then I ran into a
bunch of documentary still-pho-
tographers, who reminded me
there's much more drama in what
is — and what was than any-
thing the human imagination
makes up.
"And the rest is literally history,
That's what I've been doing for 25
years.
But I3urns doesn't buy the criti-
cism that his films are too much
the same stylistically, each a collec-
tion of still pictures, narration,
interviews and thematic music.
"I disagree completely," he said
Each film represents a new chal-
lenge, and I respond to each with
stylistic differences. If you get far
enough away, then half of the
History Channel and half of AScE
looks like a Ken Burns film.
-
They've copied a style I invented.
"This is who I am, this is a
process of discovery. So I look
back and see, that's how I solved
those problems.
"If you like it, it's called tech-
nique. You don't criticize Pablo
Picasso because you can instantly
recognize a Picasso." Li
— Robert P Laurence
Copley News Service

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