Ken Burns’s Jazz: The Story of American Music aired on PBS in January 2001. For the director who produced documentaries on the civil war, and the national pastime, baseball, music — and jazz in particular — would prove more challenging and controversial. While the series was full of great photographs, films, and, of course, songs by leading jazz artists, it would also be criticized for omissions and weaknesses. The coverage of the emergence of the form at the turn of the 20th century, and the role of players like Buddy Bolden who apparently didn’t ever record, is among its strengths. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, two titans of jazz, receive much coverage in the series, but perhaps too much, because major artists from Fats Waller to Lester Bowie are missing. The subject of avant-garde and free jazz isn’t covered, and indeed the whole story seems to end right around the time that was beginning. Nonetheless, jazz CD sales, usually quite small these days, did jump up a bit while the series ran, and the documentary did serve to increase our awareness of the great American contribution to the world’s musical history that we call jazz.

Ken Burns’ Jazz from PBS