Going into the project Burns had a limited knowledge of Jazz, which he seemed to consider a plus - the viewer would share in his exploration of the subject. But:
Burns suffocates the jazz tradition in his superlatives. He deadens everything with his wonder. He has come to be ravished. A helpless hero-worshiper, his success threatens to make hero worship into a respectable historical standpoint. It is easy to see why Burns flourishes in this culture of worthless admiration. He is really just a fan: Bob Costas with an NEA grant.
And the guys he hooked up with as guides, Wynton Marsalis and critic Stanley Crouch and their grumpy guru Albert Murray, are people with some serious agendas and axes to grind. They have exclusionary and myopic ideas about what is valuable and authentic in Jazz, and are dismissive of everything else. The roles of European music influence, white musicians, fusion and particularly the avant-garde are marginalized, ignored or rejected.
An example that I found especially maddening - Burns veers from his fanboy reverence for a harsh dismissal of Cecil Taylor, and by extension difficult experimental music in general, in an exchange with Branford Marsalis, deep thinker of Tonight Show and Buckshot LeFonque fame. Burns sets him up thusly - "Do you think the audience likes to be educated? I know Cecil Taylor has said, 'I prepare for my next concerts. The audience has to prepare.' " To which Marsalis responds - "That’s total self-indulgent bullshit as far as I’m concerned. I mean, you know, I love baseball. I mean, I’m not going to go and catch a hundred grounders before I go to a game. I mean, that’s what… we pay to see them do what they do and to appreciate them. I mean, why would the audience sit around and practice and prepare? I mean, they pay their money to hear what it is that we do and to appreciate what it is that we do." Well, I mean, nobody said you have to learn how to play piano before going to see Cecil. But if you want to get anything out of it, you should be prepared to pay attention. You don't go to a ball game with zero understanding of the rules of baseball and then angrily complain that it's worthless and doesn't make any sense - that would be "total self-indulgent bullshit".
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