The Best of Ken Burns Jazz
Ken Burns, America's premier documentary filmmaker, scores another hit with his landmark 10-part, 19-hour PBS documentary,Jazz. This sampler is a smaller version of the accompanyingfive-CD box set, with 22 selections spanning the music's many styles: fromBenny Goodman's 1938 classic rendition of "King Porter Stomp" toJohn Coltrane's immortal "Giant Steps."Billie HolidayandSarah Vaughanform a sweeping spectrum of jazz singing with their varying styles.Dizzy GillespieandCharlie Parker's "Groovin' High,"Thelonious Monk's riff blues "'Straight, No Chaser," andMiles Davis's modal masterpiece "So What" are among the music's "greatest hits" compiled here.Louis Armstrong's down-home treatment ofHoagy Carmichael's "Star Dust" and Duke Ellington's rousing "Cotton Tail" show why they are the alpha and the omega of this music. Although the documentary and the sampler omit the avant-garde and Latin jazz, this is, overall, good one-stop shopping for those just getting in the groove.--Eugene Holley Jr.