Just saw the movie, "Bird."

[Larry Kart]

Let me know the next time you meet someone who was a neophyte when he saw Jazz, became interested in the music as a result of it...

Why not just stop there? I'm certainly not saying that it's impossible for that to have occured, but let me know.

Pretty sure there were a lot of Burns-branded CDs sold in the aftermath - proof positive that some people were motivated to seek out the music they heard.

And if that did happen very much, how could these people have screened out the "assorted falsehoods, half-truths and Crouch-isms," which were fairly well pervasive?

I'd say its more likely that hardly anyone remembers anything that specific from the movie and if they were neophytes before there's a good chance they moved on to other sources of information about the music and its makers.

BTW, I do have at least one anecdotal response to the Burns series from a musically inclined young person I know. IIRC, the footage of Armstrong playing and singing "Dinah" with a European ensemble was played a great many times -- the idea being that it was iconic/symbolic.

For many of the likes of us (and objectively, too), yes -- but my young friend eventually found the repetition of this clip so off-putting that his initial positive response to it was sadly transformed into something like repulsion. You could say, 'Well, so much for him, he's a dope,' but I think he was essentially reacting to having something genuine shoved down his throat so insistently that it began to seem false -- or at least the insistent shoving did. In fact, I too began to groan every time that "Dinah" clip cropped up.

I think the only "young people" motivated to watch Jazz already had a predisposition toward the music. Or do you think that PBS reaches a lot of young people with its typical programming? Jazz was aimed more or less at baby boomers who knew that Miles Davis was a cool cat and already owned a jazz CD or two, as a cultural affect.

As for Dinah, so Burns should be criticized for over-using certain clips. If that really prevented a young person from "getting" Louis Armstrong, then I think that's more or less their loss, and their fault. Or maybe you think that if kids today can only write for twitter, facebook or easy text-reading, then all lessons should be delivered in 140 characters or less.

What I'm saying -- and this I think echoes one of the points Chris made above -- is that much of the series had the feel of propaganda (which in many respects was the case). And if there's one thing that a lot of young people (a group that include most of those "neophytes" one was hoping to win over, right?) are inclined to be put off by when they detect it, it's being propagandized -- let alone on a "This is good for you" basis (with in this case an arguable "This is good for us" subtext).

I'd argue that any documentary with a discernible point of view has propagandist-elements. Hello there Michael Moore.

Yes, "there were a lot of Burns-branded CDs sold in the aftermath" --- proof positive that a lot of people were motivated to buy those Burns-branded CDs; the series (on public television) serving as a nice marketing tool for Burns and the label that put them out. As for the impact of the series (and the Burns CD compilations) on the jazz recording business as a whole, I'll let others testify if they can and wish to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were negligible or even negative.

You misunderstand my "Dinah" example. I'm saying that the insistent repetition of this clip understandably threatened to destroy its major artistic value. It even came close, in the context of the series, to doing so for me -- and I could hardly be more of an Armstrong admirer. I also don't see how this has anything to do with "twitter, facebook or easy text-reading." In fact, the use of that clip was numbing/mindless.

About drawing young people (or maybe any neophyte) to jazz, now, then, or ever, I see two potentially over-lapping paths here: 1) sheer musical interest; 2) some sense that this thing is "hip," relevant to your own social group and your own evolving sense of self-definition/identity.

As for 1), the music, more less of itself, can and will strike those who are so inclined at any time and anywhere, provided there is actual exposure. I'm still bemused by how at age 13 in 1955, a friend and I, maybe a month into jazz and familiar only with a slim grab bag of mostly then-current sounds, were utterly galvanized by our first accidental encounter with the music of the 1940-42 Ellington band. This, we immediately knew, was solid gold; I think the inherent sheer quality of the music "taught" us this lesson pretty much instantaneously.

By contrast, a month or two later a jazz-fan school teacher told me to check out Charlie Parker, specfically a Roost LP reissue of Dial material, and I just didn't get it. The music sounded so harsh, brittle, and strange; also, those Roost pressings were so nasty that they made the music, as "sound" per se, sound archaic -- what the hell did I know? (I soon got the message about Bird and Diz from the Norvo "Congo Blues" date.)

Another key step -- bigger in one sense than with Bird, though also easier for me to take -- was to Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers. A bigger step because the time feel was a good deal different from what I'd heard; easier though because the novel formal-dramatic pleasures of the music again, as with Ellington, essentially "explained" themselves.

And with that, plus the advent/impact of Sonny Rollins, there probably wasn't going to be a darn thing of value in the past, present, or future of the music that I wouldn't have a good chance to grasp -- this, of course, in part because I'd now come to feel that the course of this music (past, present, and future) couldn't be separated from who I was.

Sorry for the personal stuff, but I think general principles, pleasure principles, are at work here. It's not like a seventh-grade civics class.

[Jim R]

I guess I'm the turd in the punch bowl, I hated the movie "Bird". I didn't see it with any preconceived notions about how it should be approached or factors X, Y, or Z needing to be in a "proper" representation of Parker's life. I was ready to take it for whatever it was. It's obvious Whitaker never saw (or wasn't directed or chose to follow) video footage of Parker's playing. He was squirming and jerking around as if every note or phrase required some kind of body movement. The footage I've seen of Parker always impressed me because there was a lot going on musically but he stood or sat stone still, the fleet and economical movement of his fingers on the keys communicating his message, not the movement of his body. A pet peeve of mine is non-musicians unconvincingly trying to play musicians in movies and I recall seeing a lot of unconvincing acting in that regard. If music is an important part of the story, find musicians that can act and leave the poseurs to act in movies where the musicians are in the background. I thought the transitions with the flying cymbal were awkward and clunky. I recall some street scenes with musicians or club patrons where the acting was very hammy, forced and transparent. I was quite bored with it and gave up on it around the 2-hour mark. I appreciate Eastwood's desire to do something more than just put out a straight, run-of-the-mill, chronological story but his efforts seemed to be an attempt at being artsy for the sake of being artsy rather than as an effective vehicle for telling the story. Others may feel differently, but I thought the effort fell short. It leaves me wondering if this movie would be seen in such positive light if it were about some journeyman player rather than an iconic jazz giant.

I agree also, and as others posted here back when it was released, I thought Whitaker was probably a poor choice in general for the role. I only saw the film once, and although the opportunity has been there to watch it again on cable, I don't have the slightest desire to even watch a single scene. I'm a fan of a number of Eastwood films, but he really disappointed me with this one.

[bichos]

Not to change the subject, but I recently went to Youtube to see if there was any Charlie Parker footage. I feel like I should know this stuff already, but you can't know everything, I guess.

Anyway, there is footage of him with Lester Young, and the description reads:

"This is one of two surviving sound films of Charlie Parker playing (and certainly the longest; the other is only 52 seconds long)."

Is this true?

no, there is no footage of charlie parker together with lester young. the film you mean is norman granz´ promotion film "improvisation" from his j.a.t.p. group in the fall of 1950. prez is on two numbers, "pennies from heaven" and "blues (up-tempo)" together with harry edison, bill harris, flip phillips, hank jones, ray brown, buddy rich and ella fitzgerald. this movie forms a whole with a performance of coleman hawkins and bird with jones, brown and rich (at gjon mili´s not sound proofed photo studio), playing "ballade" and "celebrity". but prez and bird together on film, unfortunately not! (and i don´t know what 52 seconds means the other). the other with sound is the famous "hot house" with dizzy. and than there is only one more silent from sweden, november 21. 1950.

keep boppin´

marcel