Jazz has been called America’s greatest contribution to the arts, and it has existed in a recognizable form for close to one hundred years, but jazz has a much longer history. The Story of Jazz is a colorful tale of cross-cultural influences that produced a constantly evolving, enduring music. It is a rich 90-minute weave of sounds, rare film clips, stills and interviews that places the history of jazz into proper perspective. Through this absorbing mix of sights and sounds, we trace the music’s diverse ingredients, see how the mix was formed, and how this truly American expression spread to become a universal language.
Of course, The Story of Jazz is also a captivating trek through the stylistic changes that have kept jazz so fresh for all these years: New Orleans traditions, Stride, Swing, Boogie Woogie, Big Band, Jump Band, the singers, the dancers, the blues, Bebop, Afro-Cuban, Cool, Free-form… it’s all here.
It also adds to the list such equally vital innovators as King Oliver, Coleman Hawkins, Ornette Coleman, Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie.
This is not your commonly told jazz history; it does not begin in pre-World War I New Orleans and simply move up the river to the land of Swing and Bop—it takes us back to the 1830s and square one: Congo Square, that small plaza in New Orleans where slaves performed the wondrous, rhythmic sounds of Africa. We learn how these sounds profoundly affected a young boy and began a succession of influences that are felt to this day.
The Story of Jazz combines an authoritative narrative with the personal first-hand observations of dozens of great jazz artists—Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Buck Clayton, Illinois Jacquet, Tony Bennett, Lester Bowie, Zilner Randolph, Bud Freeman, Randy Weston, Carmen McRae, Billy Taylor, Jay McShann, Roy Haynes, and Wynton Marsalis among others.
Never before have the filmed comments of so many important jazz artists been assembled for one project, and never before has the history of jazz been told as vividly and with such attention to historic detail.
“The Story of Jazz” is as entertaining as it is informative, a seamless array of performances, comments, and compelling historic insight.
Writer: Chris Albertson
Program: © Multiprises, LLC
