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OT - Ken Burn's Jazz was RE: good intentions




Plagiarized from Ray Ashley's post on the taptalk list:

>"this just in (from an auknown, but very witty source):
>
>Presenting Ken Burns' 144-hour Extremely Important documentary, "Jazz."
>
> >Fade up on a grainy old photograph of a man in a three-piece suit,
> >holding a cornet.  Or a bicycle horn, it's hard to tell.
> >
> >Narrator:  Skunkbucket LeFunke was born in 1876 and died in 1901.  No
> >one who heard him is alive today.  The grandchildren of the people who
> >heard him are not alive today.  The great-grandchildren of the people
> >who heard him are not alive today.  He was never recorded.
> >
> >Wynton Marsalis: I'll tell you what Skunkbucket LeFunke sounded like.
> >He had this big rippling sound, and he always phrased off the beat, and
> >he slurred his notes.  And when the Creole bands were still playing
> >De-bah-de-bah-ta-da-tah, he was already playing
> >Bo-dap-da-lete-do-do-do-bah!  He was just like gumbo, ahead of his time.
> >
> >Announcer: LeFunke was a cornet player, gambler, card shark, pool
> >hustler, pimp, male prostitute, Kelly Girl, computer programmer, brain
> >surgeon and he invented the internet.
> >
> >Stanley Crouch: When people listened to Skunkbucket LeFunke, they heard
> >Do-do-dee-bwap-da-dee-dee-de-da-da-doop-doop-dap.  And they knew even
> >then how deeply profound that was.
> >
> >Announcer: It didn't take LeFunke long to advance the art of jazz past
> >its humble beginnings in New Orleans whoredom with the addition of a
> >bold and sassy beat.
> >
> >Wynton: Let me tell you about the Big Four.  Before the Big Four, jazz
> >drumming sounded like BOOM-chick-BOOM-chick-BOOM-chick.  But now they
> >had the Big Four, which was so powerful some said it felt like a Six.  A
> >few visiting musicians even swore they were in an Eight.
> >
> >Stanley: It was smooth and responsive, and there was no knocking and
> >pinging, even on 87 octane.
> >
> >Wynton: Even on gumbo.
> >
> >Announcer: When any musician in the world heard Louis Armstrong for the
> >first time, they gnawed their arm off with envy, then said the angels
> >probably wanted to sound like Louis.  When you consider a bunch of
> >angels talking in gruff voices and singing "Hello Dolly," you realize
> >what a stupid aspiration that is.
> >
> >Gary Giddy: Louis changed jazz because he was the only cat going
> >Do-da-dep-do-wah-be-be, while everyone else was doing
> >Do-de-dap-dit-dit-dee.
> >
> >Stanley: And that was very profound.
> >
> >Marsalis: Like gumbo.
> >
> >Stanley: Uh-huh.
> >
> >Matt Glaser: I always have this fantasy that when Louis performed in
> >Belgium, Heisenberg was in the audience and he was blown away and that's
> >where he got the idea for his Uncertainty Principle.
> >
> >Marsalis: Because the Uncertainty Principle, applied to jazz, means you
> >never know if a cat is going to go Dap-da-de-do-ba-ta-bah or
> >Dap-da-de-do-bip-de-beep.
> >
> >Wynton: Louis was the first one to realize that.
> >
> >Stanley: And that can be very profound.
> >
> >Stanley: I thought it was a box of chocolates...
> >
> >Announcer: The Savoy Ballroom brought people of all races colors and
> >political persuasions together to get sweaty as Europe moved closer and
> >closer to the brink of World War II.
> >
> >Savoy Dancer: We didn't care what color you were at the Savoy.  We only
> >cared if you were wearing deodorant.
> >
> >Stanley: Wynton always wears deodorant.
> >
> >Glaser: I'll bet Arthur Murray was on the dance floor and he was
> >thinking about Louis and that's where he got the idea to open a bunch of
> >dance schools.
> >
> >Stanley: And that was very profound.
> >
> >Giddy: Let's talk about Louis some more.  We've wasted three minutes of
> >this 57-part documentary not talking about Louis.
> >
> >Wynton: He was an angel, a genius, much better than Cats.
> >
> >Stanley: He invented the word "Cats."
> >
> >Wynton: He invented swing, he invented jazz, he invented the telephone,
> >the automobile and the polio vaccine.
> >
> >Stanley: And the internet.
> >
> >Wynton: Very profound.
> >
> >Announcer: Louis Armstrong turned commercial in the 1930s and didn't
> >make any more breakthrough contributions to jazz.  But it's not PC to
> >point that out, so we'll be showing him in every segment of this series
> >to come, even if he's just doing the same things as the last time you
> >saw him.
> >
> >Glaser: I'll bet Chuck Yeager was in the audience when Louis was hitting
> >those high Cs at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia, and that's what made
> >him decide to break the sound barrier.
> >
> >Stanley: And from there go to Pluto.
> >
> >Wynton: I'm going to make some gumbo-
> >
> >Stanley: BOOM-chick-BOOM-chick-BOOM-chicka?|a?|
> >
> >Giddy: Do-yap-do-wee-bah-scoot-scoot-dap-dap...That's what all the cats
> >were saying back then.
> >
> >Announcer: In 1964, John Coltrane was at his peak, Eric Doolphy was in
> >Europe, where he would eventually die, the Modern Jazz Quartet was
> >making breakthrough recordings in the field of Third Stream Music, Miles
> >Davis was breaking new barrier with his second great quintet, and
> >Charlie Mingus was extending jazz composition to new levels of
> >complexity.  But we're going to talk about Louis singing "Hello Dolly"
> >instead.
> >
> >Stanley: Louis went,
> >Ba-ba-yaba-do-do-dee-da-bebin-doo-wap-deet-deet-do-da-da.
> >
> >Wynton: Sweets went,
> >Scoop-doop-shalaba-yaba-mokey-hokey-bwap-bwap-tee-tee-dee.
> >
> >Giddy: I go, Da-da-shoobie-doobie-det-det-det-bap-bap-baaaaa...
> >
> >Announcer: The rest of the history of jazz will be shown in fast forward
> >and will occupy exactly seven seconds. --There, that was it.  Now here
> >are some scenes from Ken Burns' next documentary, a 97-part epic about
> >the Empire State Building, titled "The Empire State Building."
> >
> >"It is tall and majestic.  It is America's building.  It is the Empire
> >State Building.  Dozens of workers gave their lives in the construction
> >of this building."
> >
> >Matt Glaser: I'll bet that they were thinking of Louis as they were
> >falling to their deaths.  I have this fantasy that his high notes
> >inspired the immenseness of the Empire State Building.
> >
> >Wynton Marsalis: I'll bet most people who'd fall off the Empire State
> >Building would go "Aaaaaahhhh!"  But these cats went
> >"Dee-dee-daba-da-da-bop-bop-de-dop-shewap-splat!"
> >
> >"That's next time on PBSa?|"