Ken Burns' JAZZ: Knowing His Audience

Unlike his other two projects on the Civil War and baseball, Ken Burns' jazz project faced an immediate significant obstacle, which is the relative unpopularity of the subject. He had to convince people to watch first of all a documentary, and next a documentary on jazz, a subject perceived by the general public as boring and inaccessible.

Regardless of the quality of the project, if he did not overcome this obstacle, then the project would not reach his intended audience, and it would not be a commercial success, and his grantors would be highly disappointed.

The Burns intended audience was the general public, not the "jazzerati" as he has coined the community of jazz scholars, knowledgable fans, and musicians.

So, the question facing him was, How to make jazz history interesting -- exciting, even -- and accessible to the general public?

I think he answered this question in several key ways.

If a jazz historian made a film, I believe it would be an historical jewel, filled with original examples and the words of the best scholars, and with every fact checked repeatedly and highly methodically. The focus of the project would be the information. In contrast, I believe the focus of Ken Burns' project was the film.

A film is a vital, powerfully immediate way to disseminate information. I thought that Mr. Burns used the "tricks" of filmmaking brilliantly: camera effects, facial expressions, the sound and flow of intense voices, visually arresting imagery such as dancing and excited crowds, and a sense of pacing and surprise as we move from one passage to the next. I do not doubt that aspects of historical accuracy were sacrificed to allow for choices in fimmaking.

Storytelling is another element of outreach to the public audience. We all know that "everyone loves a good story." In his choice of interviewees, I believe Ken Burns was swayed by storytelling ability. In fact, I was strongly reminded of Woody Allen's film "Sweet and Lowdown," a fictitious biopic about a character named Emmett Ray, a jazz guitarist. It is not a far stretch to imagine Woody Allen's face appearing in the Burns film, relating in his Woody Allen way some late-night, shady scenario he witnessed where famous jazz artists were involved. In any case, good stories and storytellers are essential to capturing the attention of the viewing audience. I believe this is why historical events were sometimes "Hollywoodized" in the Burns film, perhaps making them seem more dramatic than they actually were.

Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Burns needed to show his audience how the subject related to them. He did this through the explanation of jazz as mirroring the human experience, and by connecting jazz to the American identity. In the initial introduction, the narrator said that "jazz was born out of… negotiations." Those "negotiations" included "the haves and have nots, blacks and whites, men and women," and others. Then Wynton Marsalis said that jazz "deals with" things people might not want to face, difficult emotions or fears or desires. Right away, the film speaks directly to the viewer, telling her "This film is about you."

I think that if Mr. Burns had focused completely on the music and factual events, the audience would have felt disconnected and unable to perceive the importance of the subject.

The American patriotism angle may have alienated international viewers, but I think Ken Burns truly believes that jazz is essentially American, and he wanted the film to stay true to his vision, and I also think his intended market was the American public. Incidentally, I can offer insight as to the Chinese music student reception of the film. As I said in class, I showed the film in a jazz history class while teaching in a private music school in Beijing. Students came from all over China to attend this school. There was indeed a sense of alienation to the film's message, since these were students trying to learn to play jazz, and they felt that if the music is quintessentially American then they could never do it well. In their minds, it was equal to a Westerner trying to perform Chinese opera. But, when they put this question to me, I answered excitedly that they could play jazz well and they should put their all into it. I tried to explain that there is something universal about the American ideal of individualism and freedom of expression. This was difficult to get across considering their cultural obstacles, but that is a story for another blog.

Though we have different methods and goals, Ken Burns and we "jazzerati" have a common enemy. We are constantly fighting the negative social perceptions of our field. I think that with his Jazz project, Mr. Burns has fought on the front lines for all of us. His film has inspired debate and a renewed popular interest in our subject. Now it is up to us to slowly but surely correct the facts. Our job is just as important as his.