All language subtitles for JAZZ - 09 - The Adventure (1956-1960)

[Giant steps Playing]

Branford marsalis:
A lot of younger musicians

were hanging around
with elvin Jones, and
they were talking about,

"man, you know,
we hear the intensity
that you guys played

"when you were playing
with Coltrane.

"What was that like?

How do you, like, play
with that kind of intensity?"

And elvin looks
at them and says,

"you got to be willing
to die with the motherfucker."

And then they started laughing
like kids do

and then they realize
somewhere in the middle
of that, he was serious.

How many people do you know

that are willing to die period,
die with anybody?

And when you listen
to those records,

that's exactly
what they sound like.

I mean, that they would die
for each other.

Captioning made possible by
general motors

[chronology Playing]

Narrator: In the years that
followed Charlie Parker's death,

Americans found themselves
living in an anxious golden age.

They saw the reelection
of the oldest president
in their history

and the election
of the youngest.

The Brooklyn Dodgers
left New York for Los Angeles,

science conquered polio,

and the Soviets sent
the first satellite
hurtling into space.

Black Americans intensified
their demand for civil rights,

insisting on integrated schools
and public facilities,

refusing to move
to the back of the bus.

Jazz of every kind survived,

but it struggled
to find an audience.

Benny Goodman played jazz
only occasionally now,

preferring to perform
classical music.

Duke Ellington and count basie
and dizzy Gillespie were still
on the road,

but they found work
harder and harder to come by.

Louis Armstrong
would fall out of favor

with many black Americans

then risk his whole career
on a matter of principle.

Miles Davis' brilliant music
and arrogant self-confidence

would make him an icon for young
blacks and whites alike,

but success did little
to subdue his inner demons.

Members of the "cool,"
mostly white west coast school

continued to do well
on college campuses,

and partly in reaction
to their popularity,

a hard-driving drummer
from Pittsburgh started a group

aimed at bringing jazz back
to its African-American roots.

Meanwhile,
against formidable odds

and in the face
of withering criticism,

a handful of young innovators
would emerge.

They pushed the boundaries
of the music

far beyond where even Parker
and the beboppers had gone,

until conventional notions
of rhythm and Harmony

and agreed-upon chord sequences
had all been abandoned.

The music was changing
faster than ever now,

branching out
in unexpected ways,

breeding factions
and sometimes bitter quarrels

about artistic freedom
and the very nature
of creativity.

The definition of what was jazz
and what was not

began to blur.

In the years that followed
Charlie Parker's death,

jazz would struggle
to embrace it all.

Matt glaser: When we talk
about music,

the reason we use terms
that sound vague

is not because there's
anything vague about music,

but because music expresses
human experience
so specifically,

in such specific ways,

that when you attempt to find
language to describe that,

the words fall short.

What's falling short
in that equation is language,

not the music.

The music expresses things
about human experience

that cannot be expressed
any other way.

That's why it's so important.

[Crowd cheering]

[Playing I got a woman]

narrator: In 1955,

a blind performer
from Albany, Georgia,
named ray Charles

did something few other artists
had ever dared to do.

♪♪ Woman... ♪♪

He blended jazz and blues

with the sacred music
of the sanctified church.

♪♪ That's because ♪♪

♪♪ I got a woman ♪♪

♪♪ way over town ♪♪

♪♪ good to me ♪♪

♪♪ yes, I have... ♪♪

Narrator: Some denounced
the result as blasphemous,
"devil's music,"

but black teenagers
flocked to hear it,

and I got a woman
Shot to the top

of the rhythm and blues chart.

♪♪ She's a kind of
friend indeed ♪♪

Ray Charles' brand of music
became known as "soul."

♪♪ She's good to me♪

♪♪ yes, I have ♪♪

♪♪ she saves her lovin' ♪♪

♪♪ early in the mornin' ♪♪

♪♪ just for me ♪♪

♪♪ oh, yes ♪♪

♪♪ hey, I got a woman ♪♪

♪♪ way 'cross town... ♪♪

Narrator: Some whites were
listening to soul music, too,

including a one-time
truck driver born in
tupelo, Mississippi.

♪♪ I--i--i--i--i'm
her lovin' man ♪♪

Narrator: Now white
teenagers had a new
dance music of their own.

They called it rock and roll,

and the audience for jazz,

once the most popular music
in america,

shrank still further.

♪♪ I got a woman ♪♪

♪♪ way over town, that's ♪♪

♪♪ good to me ♪♪

♪♪ good to me ♪♪

But for those
who stayed with jazz,

the music would never be
more thrilling.

Wynton marsalis: There are many
different types of musicians

with different talents.

Like, one musician might
be able to really hear Harmony,

another musician might be able
to play really fast,

another one might have
a tremendous personality
that's very unique,

another one
might just swing hard,

and some musicians' talent
is in knowing other people,

and they can play,
and when you hear them play,

you hear the sound of a lot
of people in their playing.

Other musicians play,
and you hear neurosis.

But it's great, you know.

Others play,
you hear tremendous fear,

but you hear them
confronting it.

So in jazz music, we have many
different types of musicians.

And the music is powerful
for any type of person.

And Sonny rollins
is the type of musician

that's constantly
questioning himself.

[St. thomas Playing]

Gary giddins:
Sonny rollins is a titan.

He has that ebullience
that I associate
with Louis Armstrong,

and I think
very few musicians have that.

But Sonny is
an old-style musician

in the sense
that he distrusts records.

He doesn't enjoy recording.

He believes that records
are basically commercials

to bring people
into the concerts.

That's where the music
really takes place.

He's a live performer who likes
to respond to the moment.

But he's such an honest musician
that if he's not inspired,

he won't simply play by rote
the way most musicians will

and turn out a perfectly
acceptable performance

that the audience won't be able
to tell there's anything wrong.

No. He'll riff all evening.

He'll goof off or play
the same tune for half an hour.

I've seen him play the same
melody statement for 20 minutes

like he can't get out of it,

there's nothing
he really wants to play.

But you catch him
on an inspired night,

and he'd tear the hair
off your head.

Narrator: It seemed to
many critics looking for
an heir to Charlie Parker

that Sonny rollins
was the most innovative

and influential
saxophone player in jazz.

He grew up on the West Side
of Manhattan,

a neighbor of thelonious monk,
bud Powell,

and the great Coleman Hawkins,

whose big aggressive tone
he would incorporate
into his own.

It's like a lot of cats
are practicers,

and then they practice,
and then they come,

and then they play
basically what
they've practiced.

Sonny rollins
would just come out and play.

And you can tell a lot
of the things that he's playing

are just things
that pop in his head,

immediately, right there.

The drummer will play something,

he'll hear it
and turn it around.

He's in the moment.

Narrator: Like so many other
admirers of Charlie Parker,

rollins became addicted
to heroin.

But unlike many,
he abruptly left New York

and worked as a day laborer
for a year

to get himself off drugs.

When he returned
and began working with
the drummer Max roach,

he seemed more powerful

and more rhythmically inventive
than ever.

His solos were long,
endlessly imaginative,

yet linked with everything
that had gone before.

One of rollins' best-known
albums was Saxophone colossus,

and he seemed the living
embodiment of that word.

Glaser: People have
really underestimated

the intellectual achievement
of jazz

and what it tells us
about the human mind

and how capacious
the human mind is.

And for me, Sonny rollins
is a prime example of this.

I went to see him play
a couple years ago

on the Saturday night
before easter Sunday.

And I went to see the late show,

and he started to play
his favorite theme song,
St. Thomas.

he's playing, improvising
just the most magnificent stuff

you've ever heard.

At exactly 10 seconds
to midnight,

amidst his soloing,
he plays...

[Singing tune
of Easter parade]

back to St. Thomas.

the piano player cracks up,
a few people crack up.

He had quoted...

♪♪ With your easter bonnet ♪

♪♪ with all the frills upon it ♪

That is, exactly the time it
had turned into easter Sunday,

he quoted Easter bonnet After
playing a solo for 15 minutes.

What kind of mind
does this tell us about?

[It could happen to you
Playing]

Narrator: But for all
the self-confident
swagger of his sound,

Sonny rollins was always
his own toughest critic.

In 1959, the pressure of having
to outdo himself every night

became too much.

He stopped performing altogether

and began venturing alone
out onto the williamsburg bridge

to play his saxophone
into the wind.

Wynton marsalis:
He's the type of musician

that's always
reassessing himself.

So I could see
how at a certain time,

he didn't feel
he was developing

to the level
that he wanted to develop,

so he just stopped
playing publicly

and went out and would practice
on the bridge.

And, you know,
it's like a romantic thing,

somebody on the bridge
with a saxophone.

But the whole conception
of isolation

and having to really
confront the dragon...

Which is the dragon of music
and of practicing your horn.

And then when he came off
of that period

of intense personal development,

he was playing even more horn
than he played before.

I think Sonny rollins was one
of the heirs to Louis Armstrong

who understood that pitches are
not centrally important in jazz.

Rhythm is.

He could play a solo
using one pitch

that would swing so violently
you couldn't believe it.

[Rollins playing one-pitch solo]

There's no end to
what you can do with rhythm.

And to fuse polyrhythm
with complex Harmony

is an amazing achievement
of jazz.

Narrator: Rollins
returned to jazz in triumph,

only to abandon it again
several times

over the years that followed,

as his restless talent
and his private anxiety
about its worth

battled for his heart and mind.

"We have to make ourselves
as perfect as we can,"

he once said.

That's a very
familiar scene--

Duke Ellington
at his piano.

As we both know,
bands come and go.

How do you account
for the fact

that yours has been
up there for so long,

that it's constantly
in demand

for, what, more than
30 years now, isn't it?

Oh, it's
about 80% luck--
good luck, that is.

My idea of good luck

is being at
the right place
at the right time,

doing the right
thing before
the right people.

[Caravan Playing]

Narrator: Despite
his near-universal fame,

by the mid-1950s,
Duke Ellington was in trouble.

Some of his finest musicians
had left him.

Rumors flew that he
could no longer afford
to stay on the road.

He admitted to a reporter

that, "our band is operating
at a loss now."

In the summer of 1955,

he found himself
playing his old tunes

for an ice show at the aquacade
in flushing, New York.

Then in July 1956,

the jazz impresario George wein
invited him

to appear at the third annual
outdoor jazz festival

held at the tranquil
summer retreat

of some of america's
wealthiest families--

Newport, Rhode Island.

Ellington saw the festival

as a chance to reinvigorate
his career,

and he did something
he had never done.

He gave a pep talk to his men
before they went onstage.

Narrator: Ellington had
put together a piece

called
the Newport festival suite.

it went over well enough
with the audience,

but as it came to a close,

people began heading
for the parking lot.

[Diminuendo
and crescendo in blue Playing]

Ellington called for
one of his old standbys,

diminuendo and crescendo
In blue.

people stopped, listened,
and hurried back to their seats.

Then tenor saxophonist
Paul gonsalves began to play.

George wein: People sat
in reserved seats normally,

and they sat
and watched the concert,

and once in a while,
they'd stand up and cheer
and give a standing ovation.

But a woman started to dance

when Ellington had
Paul gonsalves playing
his tenor solo.

And Duke saw this woman dance.

Everybody crowded around to see
the dancing of this woman,

a blond woman from new bedford.

She was quite attractive.

It really took hold.

And Ellington saw
this thing happening,

and he just kept
Paul gonsalves playing.

Clark Terry:
And as it began to build,

some gorgeous, voluptuous lady
in the audience

decided that she was
being moved to the point

where she could no longer
contain herself,

so she jumped up on the stage

and started allowing herself
to be flounced around a bit.

Ha ha.

And Ellington kind of
enjoyed that,

and it inspired him,

and he in turn
inspired the band,

and the band was, uh...

Sam woodyard was the drummer,

and he started pounding
a little heavier,

so things begin to build up
to a real frenzy.

Narrator: Gonsalves dug in,

one furious chorus
following another.

Wein: Duke caught that spirit.

He kept playing that piano
and comping and comping

and kept it going
and kept it going.

And you could see in his face
the joy and the excitement.

This was something
that never happened for him

with all the years
he'd been playing.

Narrator: The audience
became so enthusiastic

that George wein,
afraid of a riot,

began frantically
signaling Ellington
to cut the number short.

But Ellington refused
to stop gonsalves.

Gonsalves went on playing
for 27 choruses.

The crowd demanded 4 encores.

Ellington:
Paul gonsalves!

Paul gonsalves!

Narrator: A record
of the concert

sold hundreds of thousands
of copies,

more than any other record
Duke Ellington ever made.

Wein: Every time I saw Duke
after that,

he would be talking
about the introduction

of the Diminuendo
And crescendo in blue.

he would say, "I was born
at Newport in 1956."

Lots of luck he was "born."

He'd only created
the whole history
of American music

prior to 1956.

But the band was working more.
They were getting more money.

People were calling
for the band,

and Duke felt a new surge
in his life.

[Surrey with the fringe on top
Playing]

Stanley crouch: Now, miles Davis
benefited from the reaction

that people were beginning
to feel in the 1950s

against the suburbanization
of the United States.

You know,
a lot of mass packaging

in a kind of a projection
of a certain sublime mediocrity,

if you will.

So people wanted something
that was elegant

but that had a bite to it.

Narrator: After miles Davis
had kicked his heroin habit,

he resolved to make up
for lost time.

He was under contract
to a small label named prestige

and recorded
a steady stream of albums

with group after group
of gifted musicians--

Sonny rollins,

Horace silver,

milt Jackson,

red garland,

Paul chambers,

Philly Joe Jones,

cannonball adderley,

and a youthful veteran of rhythm
and blues bands--John Coltrane.

Wynton marsalis: His sound
becomes really clear.

His direction is clear,

playing the long lines
with a beautiful sound,

always with that sense of swing,

because he always
could really swing.

And real swinging
rhythm sections that
are very organized.

You don't hear a lot
of sloppiness on his recordings

because he has people
in very defined roles,

and his albums are always
good to study

because you can hear
what's going on at that time.

Narrator: Like Duke Ellington,

Davis was always able
to incorporate

the distinctive sounds
of disparate musicians
into his own music,

like the sense of space he heard

in the work of the pianists
Ahmad Jamal and thelonious monk.

Crouch: From monk,
he learned that you could use

the new kind of harmonic ideas
that had arrived,

but you could use them
in the spare, telling way

that Billie Holiday
and Louis Armstrong

and blues singers and players
used their material.

[The man I love Playing]

So you didn't need to use
the baroque elements

that you got in bop.

You could just cut straight to
the chase, as the saying goes.

Because he learned from monk

that whereas one guy
might play 7 or 8 notes,

monk might play 3 or 2.

But they'd be
so tellingly placed

that they would have
the same impact.

Sometimes bigger.

Giddins: He was
the young romantic.

He was a true romantic.

He played ballads the way
nobody else could play them.

They weren't sentimentalized.

They were beautiful,
and they were deep,

and they didn't require
a lot of hand-wringing.

And they were different
from anybody else.

You'd have these
almost stark melodies

in a romantic ballad,

and the starkness
would make the romance
all the more compelling.

And he knew that.

It was just him and the trumpet,

and you were feeling
as you watched and listened

that you were
sort of eavesdropping
on a very private moment,

and it was almost an imposition

when the other musicians
would come in.

Narrator: Davis had become
a consummate professional,

and his tenderness
when playing love songs

had begun to win him
a whole new audience.

But miles Davis wanted more.

"The real money," he said,

"was in getting
to the mainstream of america."

He had been recently signed

by the biggest label
in the business,
Columbia records,

a company with all the resources
he would need

to become a bigger star.

But he could not begin
to record for Columbia

until he had produced
4 final albums for prestige.

Davis was so eager to move on

that he managed to make
all 4 records in 2 days.

No second takes
were ever needed.

Wynton marsalis:
Miles' music appeals

to the vulnerable side
of people.

His music speaks to
the solitary person
inside of each of us.

And it soothes us in knowing
that we all feel alone.

But on the other hand,
he swings.

And this combination
of 2 opposite things,

you put them together,

and that's a cocktail
that is irresistible.

At the Rouge lounge
all this week

is one of the great jazz groups
in the country today,

and that's the
Max roach-cliff brown ensemble.

And with us tonight is
one of the outstanding
jazz trumpeters

in the country today--
emarcy recording star
Clifford brown.

[Playing Oh! Lady be good]

narrator: In the hard living
world of jazz,

Clifford brown stood out.

Drugs and alcohol
didn't interest him,

nor was he temperamental.

Brown routinely
arrived an hour early
for recording dates

to clean his horn
and ready his mind.

And he always seemed
to have time

for younger players
eager for advice.

His only vice was chess.

"Clifford was a profound
influence on my personal life,"

Sonny rollins remembered.

"He showed me that
it was possible to live
a good clean life

and still be
a good jazz musician."

Giddins: Clifford brown
didn't take any drugs,

and he didn't smoke,
and he didn't curse,

and he was a, you know,
purebred young man.

But he played
with more brilliance

than anyone who had come along
since Parker,

and in a sense he proved
that it wasn't about drugs.

And in fact,
it has often been suggested

that the end of heroin's
sway over jazz

occurred in the middle 1950s
for 2 reasons:

One, because of
Charlie Parker's death,

and 2, because of the arrival
of Clifford brown.

[I get a kick out of you
Playing]

Narrator: As much as
his fellow musicians
admired brown's character,

they were awed by the warmth
and richness of his tone...

And the long, melodic
dancing lines

that seemed to flow effortlessly
from his horn.

Joe lovano: I love
Clifford brown's playing.

It's some of the warmest playing
on any instrument

that's been recorded in jazz.

The passion that he played
his lines with, you know?

He created, when I say lines,
I mean his phrases, you know,

the way they unfolded
and kind of just oozed
out of his horn.

Narrator: In 1954,

he had joined forces
with the brilliant
drummer Max roach.

For more than 2 years,

their quintet was one of
the most innovative in jazz.

And it seemed to many
that Clifford brown was destined

to join the ranks
of the greatest of
all trumpet players--

Louis Armstrong,
dizzy Gillespie, miles Davis.

[Song ends]

[Applause]

Brown: Thank you very much.

You've made me feel
so wonderful.

[Easy living Playing]

Narrator: On the evening
of Monday, June 25, 1956,

at the end of
a rare day off spent with
his wife and infant son,

brown took part in a jam session
in Philadelphia.

He hadn't really wanted
to be there,

but characteristically,
he was doing a favor
for a friend.

Now he would be forced
to drive through the night

to get to his next gig
in Chicago.

It was after midnight

before brown and the pianist
Richie Powell finished playing.

They took off
in Powell's new car

with Powell's wife Nancy
at the wheel.

It began to rain.

Suddenly, the car skidded
out of control,

flew over an embankment,
and turned over.

All 3 passengers
were killed instantly.

Dizzy Gillespie was
about to go onstage

at the Apollo theater in Harlem

when his men heard the news
that Clifford brown was dead.

When the curtain Rose,

most of the musicians
were in tears.

"For his artistry,"
Gillespie said,

"there can be no replacement."

Sarah Vaughan:
♪♪ I don't know why ♪♪

♪♪ but I'm feelin' so sad ♪♪

♪♪ I long to try ♪♪

♪♪ something I've never had♪

♪♪ never had no kissin' ♪♪

♪♪ oh, what I've been missin' ♪♪

♪♪ lover man,
oh, where can you be? ♪♪

Giddins: Sarah Vaughan
is my favorite singer.

Vaughan: ♪♪ the night
is so cold ♪♪

♪♪ and I'm so all alone... ♪

Giddins: She had
the most astonishing range

of any jazz singer.

She was extremely sophisticated
harmonically--

I mean in the way
that Charlie Parker
and dizzy Gillespie

and all the great
instrumentalists of bop were.

People make the mistake
of calling her operatic

and saying that
if she wanted to,

she could have been
an opera singer,

and I think they're
entirely missing the point.

She had the range,

but she had no interest
in that kind of singing.

Her whole approach to phrasing

is much more oriented around
the church and around jazz.

Vaughan: ♪♪ I've heard it said ♪

♪♪ that the thrill of romance ♪♪

♪♪ can be ♪♪

♪♪ like a heavenly dream ♪♪

Cassandra Wilson:
The tone of her voice,

the richness of her voice...

Vaughan: ♪♪ I go to bed ♪♪

Wilson: ...For me,
was otherworldly.

Vaughan: ♪♪ with a prayer ♪♪

I felt I left my body when
I listened to Sarah Vaughan.

Vaughan: ♪♪ ...Love to me ♪♪

♪♪ strange as it seems ♪♪

Chops like
you wouldn't believe.

Another one of those vocalists

who can stand right next
to an instrumentalist

and deliver
with as much dexterity

and with as much clarity

as any instrumentalist
of her time.

Narrator: Sarah Vaughan
saw herself as a musician

rather than a singer.

She was a gifted pianist
in her own right,

and when she closed her eyes
onstage, she said,

she could see--and sing--

lines that might have been
improvised on the piano.

Musicians loved her
for her perfect pitch
and rhythmic sense,

her sophisticated ear
for chord changes,

and her astonishing voice.

She could sing everything
from soprano to baritone.

They called her "sailor"
at first

for the richness
of her vocabulary

and her fondness for good times.

Later, she became known
as "sassy."

"Sassy," dizzy Gillespie
once said,

"can sing notes
other people can't even hear."

Vaughan: ♪♪ the way you wear
your hat ♪♪

♪♪ the way you sip your tea♪

♪♪ the memory of all that ♪♪

♪♪ no, no, they can't
take that away from me ♪♪

Margo Jefferson:
Harmonically, melodically,

this woman can do anything.

She was always
an experimentalist.

Vaughan: ♪♪ the way
you haunt my dreams ♪♪

Jefferson: You hear

when she's just utterly
enjoying herself musically.

You hear her very complicated
relationship to lyrics,

the way she will
distance them often

and play with them, parody them,

claim to forget the words,

which I'm not at all convinced
she always forgot,

you know, and substitute scat.

I think all of that bespeaks
a chafing at the boundaries

of the popular song
as a jazz musician.

♪♪ The way your smile
just beams ♪♪

♪♪ the way you sing off-key,
key, key ♪♪

♪♪ the way you haunt my dreams ♪

♪♪ no, no, can't take that
away from me ♪♪

♪♪ can't take that away from me♪

I'm looking for
a boy singer.

I'd like to get
a young singer for
my band, you know.

A young, young singer?

Yeah,
a young singer.

I'd like to.

I don't think you
have to go any further.

Well, who is it?

You?

Ahh, you kill me,
daddy!

Giddins: He did not
distinguish

between being an artist
and being an entertainer.

Since you, uh,
brought memories
to my memory,

look here, uh...

Giddins: He was
a great artist,

but he was there
to entertain you.

He wasn't offering his art
as, you know, homework.

It wasn't for 4 credits.

It was to have fun.

Look at
daddy Mitch.

Drape it on us
there, daddy.

[Band playing
Ko ko mo (I love you so)]

yeah. We're
going now.

♪♪ Talk to me, baby ♪♪

♪♪ whisper in my ear ♪♪

♪♪ talk to me, baby ♪♪

♪♪ whisper in my ear ♪♪

He could be
almost like a vaudevillian

and do a kind of a low humor
routine with velma middleton.

He could joke
with the musicians,
with the audience.

He could tell
slightly off-color stories.

And then he could
pick up the trumpet

and play something that would
bring tears to your eyes.

He did not distinguish,

and this drove
a lot of people nuts.

A lot of people wished
that he had just, you know,
never recorded pop tunes.

He should have been on
some kind of ivory tower,

occasionally sending forth
a recording

or appearing in carnegie hall.

That's not Louis Armstrong.

♪♪ Oh, there's dimples
on her elbows... ♪♪

Gerald early: There was
something about Armstrong

that seemed to be
a certain kind of shadow

of a certain kind
of minstrelsy,

and I believe it made
a lot of black people
uncomfortable.

Then, too, his music,

he had made certain
kind of adaptations

in his music for popular taste

but not significant
adaptations in his music

for black popular taste.

[Scatting]

Armstrong just really
didn't seem to be speaking

to that community anymore...

[Scatting]

And I believe that's
why he had such trouble
with black people

in the fifties and sixties.

♪♪ Yeah, kokey ♪

♪♪ kokey ♪♪

♪♪ ko ko mo ♪♪

[Scatting]

♪♪ Oh, yeah ♪♪
♪♪ oh, yeah♪

[Applause]

Ha ha ha!

What he did,
what he played came from within.

It came from, uh...

It came from his own heart,
from his mind,

where it wasn't
anything contrived.

It was him.

It was Louis,
what he was,

the essence of his being.

That's the difference.

He was a completely honest man--

musically and in every other way
that I knew about.

[Aunt hagar's blues
Playing]

Narrator: On September 9, 1957,

Louis Armstrong was
about to go onstage in
grand forks, north Dakota,

when he saw on television
a crowd of whites

jeering at black children

who were trying to enter
central high school in
little rock, Arkansas.

Orval faubus, the state's
segregationist governor,

defied the United States
supreme court

and ordered in Arkansas
national guardsmen
with drawn bayonets

to keep the students out.

Armstrong was outraged.

He had just been asked to
undertake a goodwill tour
of the Soviet union

for the state department.

Jazz had always been
a symbol of American freedom,

and Armstrong would be
the first American jazz artist

to appear
behind the iron curtain.

Now with little rock,
he was reluctant to go.

What are you
going to tell
the Russians

when they ask
you about

it all depends what time
they send me over there.

I don't think
they should send me now

unless they straighten
that mess down south.

And for good.

I mean, not just
to blow over.

To cut it out, I think.

Because they've been
ignoring the constitution,

although they're
taught it in school.

But when they go home,
their parents
tell them different,

say, "you don't have
to abide by it

"because we've been
getting away with it
a hundred years,

"so, uh, nobody
tells on each other.

So don't bother with it."

So if they ask me what's
happening if I go now,

I can't tell a lie.
That's one thing.

And I wasn't lying,
the way I feel about it.

Narrator: Armstrong
canceled the tour.

"The way they're treating
my people in the south,"

he told a reporter,
"the government can go to hell.

It's getting so bad, a colored
man hasn't got any country."

Armstrong's white road manager
was appalled,

afraid he had ruined his career.

Shaw: He said, "Louis Armstrong
never said nothing like that,"

because he's thinking about
those big fees, you know?

He said, "Louis Armstrong
never said anything about that.

He didn't say
anything like that."

Louis said, "yes I did.

"I meant it, and I'll stand by
until my dying day.

"All I ask is that they
take those little kids
into the school.

Why can't they go to school?"

Giddins: And he had some
very dark words for faubus.

He called him
an uneducated plowboy,

and he criticized eisenhower

for not going down there
and taking, you know,

that little black girl
in his hand

and marching her
into that school.

Well...from any black
entertainer at that time,

that was powerful stuff.

But from Louis Armstrong?

Narrator: No other jazz musician
spoke out so forcefully.

Now critics, both black
and white, attacked him.

Editorials called
for a boycott of his concerts.

Louis Armstrong
wouldn't back down.

But the controversy--

and the killing schedule
of one-nighters

Armstrong always
insisted on keeping--

eventually took its toll.

In the summer of 1959,
on tour in Italy,

he suddenly collapsed

with what was later diagnosed
as a heart attack.

Armstrong told the press

that his old friend
bix beiderbecke

had tried to enlist him
for Gabriel's band.

Reporter: About 2 days ago,

they practically had you
in the cemetery.

No, it must have been
longer than that.

It must have been longer
than that.

The trouble was that
Sidney bechet and bix

tried to get me up there
to play first chair,

but I didn't want to.

They didn't want
to pay me nothing
but union scale, so...

You didn't hear Gabriel
blowing his horn,
did you, Louis?

Well, I didn't
get that far, see
what I'm saying?

Narrator: He was back
playing again 2 weeks later.

[St. Louis blues Playing]

Ossie Davis: Louis Armstrong,
to me, is a smile,

a handkerchief, and sweat...

And the capacity to move me
above and beyond tears.

I was working on a film called
A man called Adam,

which starred Sammy Davis Jr.

Louis Armstrong
was also in the picture.

One day at lunch,
everybody had gone out.

The set was quiet.

As I came back toward the set,
I looked up,

and there was Louis Armstrong
sitting in a chair,

the handkerchief
tied around his head,

looking up
with the saddest expression

I've ever seen
on a man's face.

I looked,
and I was startled,

and then I started to
back away because it seemed
such a private moment.

But he heard me backing
away, and he broke
out of it right away.

"Looks like these cats are going
to starve old Louis to death.

Hey, man, wow,"
and everything, you know.

I went into it with him,
but I never forgot that look.

And it changed my concept
of Louis Armstrong,

because I, too, as a boy

had objected to a lot
of what Louis was doing.

I figured all them teeth
and all that handkerchief--

we called it "ooftah,"

by that which we meant,

you do that to please
the white folks, don't you?

You make them happy
and all that stuff.

You make us look like fools.

But it was only then
I began to understand
something about Louis.

He could put on that show,
he could do that whole thing,

because in that horn of his,
you know,

he had the power to kill.

That horn could kill a man.

So there was where the truth
of Louis Armstrong resided.

Whatever he was...

The moment he put the trumpet
to his lips,

a new truth emerged,
a new man emerged,

a new power emerged.

And I looked on Louis
for what he truly was
after that.

He became an angelic presence
to me after that moment.

Boy: Ladies and gentlemen,

as you know, we have
something special

down here at birdland
this evening--

a recording
for blue note records.

Let's get together and bring
art blakey to the bandstand

with a great big round
of applause.

How about a big hand there
for art blakey!

Thank you!

[Playing Bu's delight]

Jackie mclean: You could
feel the rhythm

anywhere you stood
on art blakey's bandstand,

because art was so strong,

and his style was about energy
and thunder, you know.

An art blakey thunder.

Wynton marsalis: Art blakey,
like all the jazz musicians,

is that combination
of soul, intelligence,
and spirituality.

He could just do things
nobody else could do

and could get by with it.

And you talk about, like,
dissipation, getting high,

lying, hanging out late,
any of that,

but you still had to love him.

Narrator: The drummer art blakey
made it his life's work

to bring back to jazz
the audience it had lost
to rhythm and blues.

He had launched
his own big band at 15

and developed
his thunderous style

while playing with
Fletcher Henderson
and Billy eckstine.

He twice visited west Africa,
fascinated by its rhythms,

and he adopted islam

and sometimes called himself
Abdullah ibn buhaina.

But jazz, he once said,

"doesn't have a damn thing
to do with Africa."

It was an African-American
creation, he insisted.

"It couldn't have come
from anyone but us."

[Applause]

[Doodlin' Playing]

Narrator: In 1955,

blakey and a young pianist
and composer named Horace silver

established a quintet
they called the jazz messengers.

Michael cuscuna: They brought in
gospel influences,

blues influences, things
that people could relate to

who were not deeply
into modern jazz,

and it caught on very quickly.

The message of the group was

"we swing, we're earthy,
we play the blues.

"You can walk away humming it,
but we're not going to cheat

on the quality of the music
or the creativity."

And they found a way
to do everything.

Narrator: The records
they made for blue note

incorporated the sounds
of gospel and rhythm and blues

and were meant to provide
a swinging, earthy alternative

to the cool, popular sounds
of west coast jazz.

Critics labeled the music blakey
had begun to play "hard bop."

Tunes by the messengers,

the soulful electric organ
player Jimmy Smith,

and a host of others
started turning up on jukeboxes

in black neighborhoods
across the country--

Chicago's south side,

central Avenue in Los Angeles,

125th street in Harlem.

Even their titles
celebrated the culture
from which they came--

home cookin',

cornbread,

grits 'n gravy,

the preacher,

back at the chicken shack.

early: What you got was black
musicians who were saying,

"we're going to invent
a musical style and form

"that white people can't copy.

"It's going to be technically
something that they can't copy.

"It's going to have
a certain kind of swing

"or certain kind of rhythm
that they can't copy,

"certain kind of way of playing.

"But also because it's
going to be so ethnicized

"that they really
can't copy it

"without absolutely looking
like a minstrel show.

I mean,
so they can't do it."

Narrator: Art blakey's music
was always filled with joy.

"When we're on the stand,"
he said,

"and we see that there are
people in the audience

"who aren't patting their feet

"and who aren't nodding
their heads to our music,

"we know we're doing
something wrong.

"Because when we do get
our message across,

those heads and feet do move."

Horace silver eventually went on
to form groups of his own,

but art blakey kept the name
the jazz messengers,

and for 45 years,
traveled the world
spreading his message

to anyone willing to listen.

Cuscuna: We used to call him

the greatest
jazz university around.

He used to ask players

that another leader might find
valuable, indispensable,

and want to hold on to,

he used to tell musicians,
"well, you're ready now.

"You've got the tunes.
You've got the experience.

"It's time for you
to lead a band,

get 5 young cats
and feed the tributary
of jazz that way."

Well, he's the greatest
bandleader that I ever
worked with.

I not only learned so much

about how to lead a band
from art,

but I also learned how to
grow up and be a man from art.

Narrator: Generation
after generation of future stars

would get their start or hone
their skills with blakey.

Jackie mclean,

Hank mobley,

Donald byrd,

Bobby Timmons,

Benny golson,

Woody Shaw,

Lee Morgan,

Freddie Hubbard,

Keith jarrett,

joanne brackeen,

Wayne shorter,

wynton marsalis.

Yeah, the messengers
were the training ground

for a lot of great musicians

because he gave you
a chance to play

and to learn how to play.

He would put his swing
up underneath you

so that you could learn
how to play,

and when I first sat in
with him, I knew I wasn't
playing nothing.

He said, "man, you sad,
but that's all right."

And when you were around him,

you were around
the essence of jazz music.

So he put that in us.

If you want to play this music,

you have to play it with soul,
with intensity,

and every time
you touch your horn,
you play your horn.

This is not a game.

Mclean: Everybody
had to do their job,

or you were replaced.

And in every city
that we went to,

if there was a star
alto player there,

he would invite him to come
and play with the band.

And that was always
to keep me on notice

that there was always somebody
waiting in the wings.

[Blues march Playing]

Narrator: On the road,
blakey was indefatigable,

playing gig after gig

and outplaying musicians
half his age.

And he was utterly fearless.

Wynton marsalis:
The drummer art Taylor
told me one time

that some some gangsters
in Brooklyn took his drums

because he owed them
some money.

He says--
so art blakey says--

after a gig, it was, like,
3:30 in the morning,

art blakey said,
"let's go to their house."

They knew
who these people were.

"Let's go to their house
and get your drums."

So they went up there.
3:30, 4:00 in the morning,

art blakey
knocks on the door,

and a guy answers the door
with his gun in hand.

And art blakey goes,
"this man is a musician,

"and you've
taken his drums.

"Now, uh,
he owes you some money,

"but there's no way
for him to make the money

"if you deprive him
of a means

"of making a living.
He's a musician.

He's not a criminal."

So when art blakey
got finished talking,

the guys went and got his drums
and gave them to him.

And that's how he was.

He could just do things
that other people could not do

because he believed
in it so much.

You know, and when
he told me the story,

I could see
art blakey doing that

because he could just
talk to you a certain way,

and it would
make you believe

that you could
do something.

He had that belief in him.

Narrator: "Fire--
that's what people want,"

he told his young musicians
again and again.

"Jazz," art blakey said,

"washes away the dust
of everyday life."

[Dickie's dream Playing]

On December 6, 1957,

2 jazz writers--Whitney balliett
and nat hentoff--

helped gather

an extraordinary group
of musicians

for a one-time-only
live program on CBS

called The sound of jazz.

nothing like it had
ever been tried before
on American television.

It was an all-star
assemblage--

Jo Jones and count basie,

thelonious monk
and Coleman Hawkins,

Gerry mulligan
and Ben Webster,

Lester young...

And Billie Holiday.

Hentoff: Lester
and Billie had been
very close for years.

But for some reason--
and nobody could tell me why--

they had gone way apart
in preceding years,

and when we were there

for the blocking
and the sound check,

they very carefully
were on different sides

of the studio.

He was supposed to be
in the big band section,
in another section,

and I said, "look,
why don't you just do
the thing with Billie?

And you can sit down,
you don't have to stand."

And the thing with Billie
was a small group--
Roy eldridge, Lester--

and Billie was singing
one of the very few blues

she ever did--

fine and mellow,
Which she wrote.

[Playing Fine and mellow]

♪♪ my man don't love me ♪♪

♪♪ he treats me,
oh, so mean ♪♪

♪♪ my man ♪♪

♪♪ he don't love me ♪♪

♪♪ he treats me
awful mean ♪♪

♪♪ he's the lowest man ♪♪

♪♪ that I've ever seen ♪♪

Narrator: Ben Webster
played the first solo.

Hentoff:
Lester got up,

and he played the purest blues
I have ever heard.

And their eyes were
sort of interlocked,

and she was sort of
nodding and half-smiling.

It was as if they were
both remembering

what had been,
whatever that was.

Holiday:
♪♪ treat me right, baby ♪♪

♪♪ and I'll stay home
every day ♪♪

Hentoff:
And in the control room,

we were
all crying.

Holiday: ♪♪ just
treat me right, baby ♪♪

♪♪ and I'll stay home
night and day ♪♪

♪♪ but you're so mean
to me, baby ♪♪

♪♪ I know you're gonna
drive me away ♪♪

♪♪ love is just
like a faucet ♪♪

♪♪ it turns off and on ♪♪

♪♪ love is like a faucet ♪♪

♪♪ it turns off and on ♪♪

♪♪ sometimes when you
think it's on, baby ♪♪

♪♪ it has turned off
and gone ♪♪

Narrator: When the show
was over, they went
their separate ways.

[It's the talk of the town
Playing]

Lester young
was now living

in the Alvin hotel
on 52nd street.

He had moved there
from long island,

telling his wife
that he could not bear

to be so far
from the world of jazz

that had always been
his real home.

Alcohol had
destroyed his health.

Mclean: And I'd come in
and call Prez's room,

see if he wanted me
to go to the store
or anything for him.

Even when I was 19,
20 years old, you know,

I loved Lester young
so much, you know,

I would spend
any moment I could.

Sometimes he would say,
"yeah, come on up,"

and I'd go up
to his room

and go buy him some cigarettes
or something like that.

It was kind of sad.

He used to sit
at the window

and look across at birdland
at the people coming and going.

Narrator: He still played
from time to time

but spent his last days
moving from movie house
to movie house

on 42nd street

or listening
to his record player--

other people's music--
frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday--

never his own.

Lester young died in his room
at the Alvin hotel

on march 15, 1959.

His influence
was everywhere.

"Anyone who doesn't play
like Lester," one musician said,

[God bless the child
Playing]

Holiday: ♪♪ them that's got
shall have ♪♪

♪♪ them that's not
shall lose ♪♪

♪♪ so the Bible said ♪♪

♪♪and it still is news ♪♪

♪♪ mama may have ♪♪

♪♪ papa may have ♪♪

♪♪ but god bless the child
that's got his own ♪♪

♪♪ that's got his own ♪♪

Rowles: I knew
she was bad off.

Ben Webster used to say,
"oh, me, that poor girl."

We did her last record date
for Norman granz

out here at capitol records.

And she was
very wasted.

And I have a picture
that was taken

of red Mitchell and me
at the piano and her,

and she looks very,
very weak and frail.

Doesn't look like the lady day
that I first met...

Because she had been
into some awful deep stuff.

Holiday: ♪♪ money ♪♪

♪♪ you've got lots
of friends ♪♪

Narrator: By the time
Lester young died,

his old friend
Billie Holiday

was almost
unrecognizable.

Holiday:
♪♪ but when you're gone ♪♪

Narrator: Some evenings
she could not remember
the lyrics of songs

she had been singing
nearly every night

for more
than two decades.

Holiday:
♪♪ rich relations give ♪♪

Narrator: In may of 1959,

2 months after
Lester young's death,

she collapsed and was rushed
to the hospital.

Somehow, someone managed
to smuggle heroin into her room.

A nurse discovered it.

Holiday was placed
under arrest.

Police were stationed
at the door of her room.

Holiday:
♪♪ that's got his own ♪♪

♪♪ that's got his own ♪♪

Narrator: Billie Holiday,
perhaps the greatest
of all jazz singers,

died at 3:10 A.M.,
July 17, 1959.

She was 44 years old.

Holiday:
♪♪ rich relations give ♪♪

Narrator: The official cause
was cardiac failure.

The real cause,
said her manager Joe glaser,

was "a concoction of
everything she had done
in the last 20 years."

Holiday: ♪♪ mama may have ♪♪

♪♪ papa may have ♪♪

Rowles: I got the word
from New York that she died.

And it was--
it was just a tragedy,

but I sure hope
that she's resting comfortably.

Ossie Davis: I can't think
of Billie Holiday

without tears coming
to my eye.

There was always
something of pain,

always something...

That was heartbreaking
in her rendition.

And she wasn't
only talking

about her own heartbreak.

She was talking
about yours, too.

Uh, the thing
that joined us,

you know,
was the common concept

that the misery
she was singing, you know,

was one that included us
and embraced us all.

She could, like a mother
with a big, warm bosom,

reach out and embrace
and hold close--

not in the gospel sense,

but in the sense,
you know,

"god bless the child
that's got his own."

Holiday: ♪♪ he just don't worry
'bout nothin' ♪♪

♪♪ 'cause he's
got his own ♪♪

♪♪ yes, he's got his own ♪♪

[New rhumba Playing]

Narrator: In 1956,

miles Davis
found still another way
to express his genius...

And he did it
with his old friend,

the arranger Gil Evans.

Giddins: And when miles
really became important

and was signed
with Columbia records in 1956,

one of the first things he did
was to sign up Gil Evans

to write an album that
became known as Miles ahead.

and this was the first
of the 3 major works
they did together,

and they are among the most
exquisitely beautiful

and satisfyingly realized lps
of that whole era.

Narrator: Miles ahead,

porgy and Bess,

and Sketches of spain

are 3 of the best-loved

jazz albums ever made.

All of them
featured Davis

in lush
orchestral settings.

[Concierto de aranjuez
Playing]

Giddins: Gil once
told me that the sounds

that miles made
in those years

were extremely difficult
for him.

They were painful physically
and emotionally.

I mean, in a way, he was
a kind of, you know,

Marlon Brando
of the trumpet.

He was really changing
the sound of the instrument.

And Gil was able to find,
you know,

rich, original
orchestrations

that just seemed to wrap
themselves around miles.

Gil would just
create a chord,

and then
he would throw, you know,

a couple of minutes
of open space

for miles to fill it in.

And the chord would anticipate
what miles would play,

and then
the following chord

would pick up on what
miles had played.

They really
thought together as one.

Those are the kinds
of records,

especially Sketches of spain
And Porgy and Bess,

that I remember a lot of women
would have in record collections

that were otherwise
rock and roll

and a couple
of classical,

and there would be
one jazz record,

and it would be that because it
was so sophisticated and worldly

and it would set
a mood and it was
sexy and erotic,

and if you wanted
to impress somebody
on the first date,

that was always the record
that would go on the turntable.

[Teo Playing]

Narrator:
Miles Davis was now

the highest paid musician
in jazz, black or white,

and he had become
a defiant symbol of success

for a new generation
of African Americans.

He was fond of fine clothes,
fast cars, and beautiful women,

"a black man,"
a fellow musician said,

"who lives like
a white man."

Davis cultivated a cool,
tough, angry demeanor,

and his rudeness--to fans
and to other musicians--

was legendary.

Miles Davis did not take
anything from anybody.

He was also
powerful enough

to have his way
with white
management.

It bothered
Davis

that Columbia had put
a pretty blonde

on the cover
of Miles ahead,

and when he released
Someday my prince will come,

he insisted it feature
his second wife, Frances.

Frances Davis:
Miles had style.

He had something that was
electric to everybody.

Ladies just--you know,
they went crazy over him.

He was
absolutely beautiful.

The exhilaration of just
miles walking on a stage--

it was a turn-on
for everybody.

His look, his appeal
to the masses was incredible,

like no other musician
I've ever seen.

Lovano: His personality,
his whole presence was amazing.

His whole--
I don't know--

the vibrations
in the room changed

when he walked
in the room.

Everybody's eyes
focused on him.

It was, like, he had
some magical, mystical things

that was happening,
uh, in his persona.

Troupe: We all used to
act like miles.

I used to talk to girls
like I thought that miles
would talk to girls.

You know, we heard he had
this hoarse whisper,

so I'd stand up and talk
to women--girls, like--

well, girls at that time,

[hoarsely]
"Hey, baby, what's happening?

What's going on?"

Early: But he was
the person

who was talked about,
really as a personality,

more so than Ellington
or more so than any
of the other people.

Miles. I mean,
he was known first name.

Miles. Miles this,
miles that,

miles with the suits,
miles with the women.

He was the jazz hero
for my generation,

and this came along at the time
of the civil rights era,

when my generation
was sort of rejecting
Louis Armstrong,

was sort of rejecting
the whole idea

of a black person
as an entertainer,

and that was
very powerful for us.

His cool, the way he went
about his business...

The, uh, sort of
inside/outside way with miles.

Because on one level,
miles was Mr. Outside

in sort of his stance
about race

or his stance
about music

or his sort of
f-you stance about life.

But he was also
Mr. Inside.

He was popular.
He was respected.

Whites and blacks
liked his music.

I mean, there were lots
of things about miles

that made him
very attractive that way.

[Mood Playing]

Narrator: But for all
his growing fame,

for all his success,

Davis could never
completely mask

his deep insecurity...

Or control the anger
that was so much a part
of his personality.

No amount of toughness
could change the fact

that he was still a black man
in a white world.

He would be afraid to go
in to the hotels himself

to check on
our reservations,

thinking because he is
a black man,

they're going to say, "no,
we don't have your reservation."

He would send me in
to take care of that part of it.

I mean,
he really, um...

Feared the prejudice that
did happen in this country then.

Narrator: One evening,

Davis was taking a break
outside birdland

when a white policeman
told him to move on.

Davis refused.

"I'm working here,"
he said.

The officer beat him bloody
with his Billy club.

That incident
and other indignities

only fueled Davis'
alienation and rage.

He had fistfights
with club owners,

swore at fans
who dared speak to him.

His private life was
just as complicated...

And violent.

Frances Davis: Miles
was very possessive.
I was his possession.

Here I am,

this ballerina who'd performed
all over the world,

on Broadway now,

and he comes to the theater
one evening in his Ferrari

and says to me,

"Frances, a woman
should be with her man.

I want you
out of West Side story."

I couldn't even mention
another man.

When I mentioned
that Quincy Jones was handsome,

and all of a sudden,
I was down for the count.

I had to call the police
because I thought,

"this is going to be
the end of me."

It was hard,

but I was in love with him,
so I took it all.

Wein: I didn't love miles Davis.
I loved dizzy Gillespie.

I loved Duke Ellington.
I loved count basie.

I really loved
those people.

I never loved miles Davis.

People Loved
miles Davis,

but it was
a sort of a masochism.

Miles treated everybody
in very weird ways.

That worked with miles
that are still being
pains in the asses

because they learned how
to be a pain in the ass
from miles Davis,

and they try to mimic him
and imitate him.

And miles--
it worked for miles.

I was proud of working
with miles. I didn't love him.

[All blues Playing]

Narrator: Despite the turmoil
in his private life,

miles Davis astonished
the jazz world once again

in 1959.

He had brought his sextet
into the Columbia studios

to make
another album--

5 original tunes built
on simple scales, or "modes,"

rather than the complicated
chord progressions

that had characterized
bebop.

This opened up the world
for improvisers

because they could
get away from the--
almost the gymnastics

of popping through
all of these complicated
harmonic labyrinths

and just concentrate
on inventing melody,

because the Harmony
didn't change.

The guys who had been bebopping
through all those chords

for all those years

were naturally falling
into certain cliches,

certain easy kinds
of phrases.

Miles forced them
out of it.

Narrator: Davis was
committed to getting
something spontaneous

out of his musicians.

None of his men
ever saw any of his new tunes

before they got
to the recording session.

Troupe:
When miles came in,

he comes up with little
scraps of paper--

little bitty pieces
of paper--and says,
"there's your part.

There's your part.
There's your part.
There's your part."

But he wanted
that tension,

and he knew that they
were great musicians.

He told me the trick was to pick
great musicians when you do that

because he had learned that kind
of technique from bird.

So you put them
in that spot,

you give them
a little bit of something,

and then if it's
a great musician,

then they kind of
play beyond themselves.

Narrator: The great
musicians who Rose to
their leader's challenge

included tenor saxophone star
John Coltrane...

Alto saxophonist
Julian "cannonball" adderley...

Bassist Paul chambers,
Jimmy Cobb on drums...

And a new
and little-known pianist,

bill Evans.

Hentoff: And this
was a time

when there was a great deal
of fierce rejection

among some younger
black musicians

of the idea "a," that whites
could play the music,

but, more to the point,

that whites shouldn't be taking
away jobs from jazz musicians.

And this coincided
with the great popular--

great for jazz--popular interest
in so-called west coast jazz,

which was almost entirely white,
was pretty bland,

and those people
were making a lot of money.

So here he hires
bill Evans.

Narrator: When it came to music,

color didn't matter
to miles Davis.

Evans' playing, he said,

added a "quiet fire"
to his group.

It reminded him

of "sparkling water cascading
down from some clear waterfall."

The album
Davis and Evans

and the other members
of the sextet produced together,

kind of blue,

is the best-selling jazz album
of all time.

[Blue train Playing]

Glaser: Music is
one of the few things

that involves your body,
your emotions, your mind,

and your spirit,

all operating
simultaneously.

You're playing.
Your body is involved.

You're feeling emotions,

you want to express
something emotionally.

Your mind is active.

It's constructing structures
over the chord changes

of this
particular tune.

And your spirit.

If you're--it's
a prayerful kind of thing,

so in that sense,
it's a very rare gift
to be a musician,

to be able to spontaneously,
as a jazz musician,

have conversations
with other people

in which all of the parts
of themselves are embodied

and happening
at the same time.

Wynton marsalis:
Jazz music is existence music.

It doesn't take you out
of the world.

It puts you In The world
and makes you deal with it.

It's not the kind of thing

of a religiosity of,
you know, "thou must."

It's not.
It says, "this is,"

and that's it.
"This is."

It deals with the present. Yes.
All of that is what happens.

There's a guy--somebody was
laying out drunk in the street.

It might have been
the cat who's playing.

It might have been
Charlie Parker.

But that fact
doesn't alter the power--

that is the power
of what he's saying.

"Yes, I did that,
and I also do this."

It's the range of humanity
that's in this music.

Narrator:
John William Coltrane,

like all great
jazz innovators,

sought to take the music
to places it had never been

and became in the process--
to some of his admirers--

something like a savior

and an inspiration
to a whole generation
of young musicians.

Bowie: Coltrane
is like the father.

He is one of the ones
that really led us

into this spiritual quest,

who really made
people aware

of the spirituality
of jazz.

This had existed
for years before,

but Coltrane was putting it
on another level.

He was bringing it
to the forefront.

[Mating call Playing]

Narrator:
He was born in 1926,

in a little north Carolina town
called Hamlet,

grew up in high point,

and moved to Philadelphia
as a teenager.

There, he studied saxophone

at 2 different
conservatories,

played rhythm and blues,
listened to Lester young,

then got a job with a big band
led by dizzy Gillespie.

He first won fame
playing with miles Davis,

but Davis let him go
for a time

because he had become
addicted to heroin.

In 1957, while playing
with thelonious monk,

Coltrane underwent

what he called
a "spiritual awakening."

He gave up drugs,
liquor, cigarettes,

began to study eastern religions
and eastern and African music,

initiating a relentless search
for meaning

that he never
abandoned.

For the rest of his life,
John Coltrane seemed determined

to fill his music
with more of everything--

more notes, more ideas,
more energy.

Redman: John Coltrane
never rested.

He always needed to move.

Once he discovered
one thing,

he realized 10, 20 more things
that there were to discover.

He kept on
pushing himself,

and he never allowed his art
to either stagnate

or to even rest.

It was constantly moving.

John Coltrane raised
the standards

of what it means to be
a dedicated musician.

Narrator: Like his friend
Sonny rollins,

he seemed unable
to put his music aside
even for a moment.

He and rollins routinely
phoned one another,

played a phrase or two
into the receiver,

then hung up and waited
for the other to call back

with a musical answer
of his own.

[Chasin' the train
Playing]

I consider one
of the really defining
recordings of Coltrane

to be Chasin' the train,
Which he made in 1961.

He recorded it live
at the village vanguard.

It was a 16-minute solo
on one side of a record.

He plays about 80 choruses.
I once tried to count.

It's almost impossible
not to get lost,

because he keeps trying to
break through the boundaries
of the blues,

and the rhythm section
keeps holding him back
a little bit,

but you can just feel him
champing at the bit.

Now, of course,
to a lot of people,
they couldn't get it,

because it seemed repetitious
or monotonous.

The idea here, though,
was the effusiveness.

That was what was--it wasn't
about detail anymore.

It wasn't about, "gee,
that's a perfect 12-bar
Louis Armstrong solo

where every note counts
as if in a poem."

This wasn't a poem.

This was
a very long novel.

And, like in Tolstoy, it's not
about every word being right.

It's
the overwhelming effect.

And it just pinned
your ears back,

and you knew
that you were in a new world,

a brave new land
for jazz.

[Applause]

[Playing My favorite things]

narrator: In 1961,
Coltrane formed a new quartet--

McCoy tyner
at the piano,

Jimmy Garrison on bass,

and elvin Jones,
a master of complex rhythms,

on drums.

Coltrane himself
now often played

the soprano saxophone,

the instrument the New Orleans
master Sidney bechet

had introduced
to jazz.

Their stunning
transformation

of the sentimental hit
from The sound of music--

my favorite things--

became the first jazz cut
since Dave brubeck's Take five

to receive wide play
on the radio.

Soon, John Coltrane
was making more money

than any other jazz musician
except miles Davis.

But Coltrane
barely noticed.

The music was all
that seemed to matter to him,

and the men with whom he played

shared his almost
mystical belief

in the importance of what
they were doing together.

Cuscuna: The energy,
the power that came
out of that group

was just astonishing.

I guess my most vivid memories
of birdland are seeing Coltrane.

In the peanut gallery,

the tables were
very nicely spaced,

and I remember
we used to just get up

and dance
to John Coltrane.

It was as close to having
a religion as I ever got.

[Eventually Playing]

Narrator: Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington,

Charlie Parker
and dizzy Gillespie,

Sonny rollins and miles Davis
and John Coltrane

had made their
individual statements

while working within
established rhythm and Harmony

and sequences
of chords.

One man rejected
all of that.

Jazz, he said,
must be "free."

His name was
ornette Coleman.

"The theme you play
at the start of a number

is the territory,"
he said,

"and what comes after, which may
have very little to do with it,

is the adventure."

Giddins: At some point, if you
go far enough out of the chords,

the question arises,

"why use the chords
at all?

"What would happen
if we get rid of the chords,

"and we don't have
a harmonic contour?

What if we just
improvise melodically?"

Ok. Another question is,
"why do we have to play
4/4 time all the time?

"I mean,
where is that written?

"What would happen
if we don't?

"What if the drummer could
improvise a kind of time

"that responds moment to moment
to whatever the soloist

"or whatever
the ensemble is playing?

"And if you don't have
chords and if you don't
have standard time,

"what does
the bass player do?

"How does he find
his place?

And ornette Coleman put together
a quartet that did that.

It played a free music.

[Faithful Playing]

Narrator:
In a Los Angeles garage,

ornette Coleman
brought together

a group of like-minded
but much younger musicians--

the trumpet player
Don cherry,

the drummer
Billy Higgins,

and a 22-year-old bass player
from the ozarks

who had once played on the stage
of the grand ole opry,

Charlie haden.

He invited me
over to his apartment,
and we arrived.

He opened the door.
Music was everywhere--

on the rug, on the bed,
on the tables.

I uncovered my bass.
He reached down,

and he picked up a manuscript,
and he said, "let's play this."

I said, "ok."
I was real scared, you know.

He says, "now, I've
written the melody here.

"Underneath it
are the chord changes.

"Those are
the chord changes I heard
when I wrote this melody,

"but when we start to play,

"after I play the melody
and I start to improvise,

"you play the changes.
You make up new changes
that you're hearing

from what I'm playing
and from the tune."

And I thought to myself,
"somebody's finally
giving me permission

to do something that
I've--what I've been
hearing all this time."

And we started to play,

and a whole new world
opened up for me.

It was like,
uh, being born again.

I was hearing music so much
more deeply than I'd ever heard.

It's like
a desperate urgency

to improvise
completely new.

We used to talk
about it as if--

playing music as if you've
never heard music before.

And we played all night,
all day, all night, all day.

I think we took a break
to go get some food,

and we played
for about 2 days.

That was my first experience
playing with ornette.

Narrator: Coleman managed
to find a small label
willing to back him,

and he made 2 albums.

Slowly, his reputation
began to grow.

In November of 1959,
ornette Coleman

brought
his new sound

to the center
of the jazz world--

New York City.

The five spot,

in Manhattan's
east village,

was a favorite hangout

for the abstract
expressionist painters--

Franz kline, willem de kooning,
Jackson pollock.

Its management
prided itself

on featuring the most
adventurous musicians in town,

and nothing was
more anticipated

than the arrival
of the ornette Coleman quartet.

[Focus on sanity
Playing]

Haden: The first night
I played at the five spot,

I was uncovering my bass,
Billy was putting up his drums,

and cherry was getting
his horn, ornette was
getting his horn out,

and I looked
up at the bar,

which was facing
the stage,

and standing along the bar
was wilbur ware, uh...

Charlie mingus, Paul chambers,
Percy Heath,

every great bass player
in New York City
was standing there,

staring me
right in the face.

And I said, from that moment on,
I close my eyes.

I think we played there
for 4 months, 6 nights a week,

and every night,
the place was packed.

One night I was playing
with my eyes closed again,

and I'm playing,

and all of a sudden,
I open my eyes,

and somebody's
up on the stage

with his ear to the "f" hole
of my bass.

And I looked over
at ornette,

and I said, I said,
"Coleman, who is this?

Man, get him
off this bandstand."

He says, "that's
Leonard Bernstein."

Narrator: Bernstein pronounced
ornette Coleman a genius,

and Lionel Hampton
asked to sit in...

But trumpeter
Roy eldridge

said he'd listened to him drunk
and he'd listened to him sober

and he couldn't understand him
either way.

Miles Davis declared him
"all screwed-up inside,"

but John Coltrane came to play
with him between sets.

Coleman saw himself as solidly
in the jazz tradition.

"Bird would have
understood us," he said.

"He would have approved
of our aspiring

to something beyond
what we inherited."

Mclean: A lot of people
in the mid-fifties

were already playing music
that had an open concept,

what I call
the "big room,"

a place where you could
cross a threshold

and have no barriers,
you know,

no key signatures,
no chord progressions,

no particular form,
you know,

and later on,

ornette came to New York
with his quartet

and stood his ground

and made this music
really sink in

and work, you know,

and that's the thing
that I admire about ornette,

not only his writing
and playing,

but the fact
that he stood his ground

and stood by his music
and took the slings and arrows

of all the criticism
that came towards him,

because a lot of musicians
from the bebop school

thought that they were
just playing any old thing.

[Free jazz Playing]

Narrator: In 1961,
ornette Coleman issued

a record
called Free jazz.

the cover art included
a painting by Jackson pollock.

Just one piece filled
both sides of the record.

It would help
provoke a debate

about the definition of jazz
that has never ended.

Albert Murray:
Ornette Coleman came up and
says, "this is free jazz."

But what is freer than jazz?

As soon as you say jazz,
you're talking about freedom
of improvisation.

The whole thing
is about freedom,

about American freedom.

So why anybody
would want to free it

because the whole idea of art
is to create a form

that is a bulwark
against entropy, or chaos.

You see, that's the function
of jazz.

It's not to be formless
and absolutely self-indulgent.

"I want to go this way,
I'll go this way,
I'll go that way."

That's like embracing
the waves in the sea, you know.

And so it's like,
you cannot embrace entropy.

You cannot embrace chaos.

We wanted people
to like our music.
We really did.

But I really believe
that most great musicians
are free musicians.

If you listen to Coleman Hawkins
play, to improvise,

if you listen
to thelonious monk improvise,

if you listen to bud Powell,

they improvised on a level
that I call beyond category,

playing so free and so deeply

at a level of, you know,
I call it "with your life
involved."

And that's what we did.

Being willing
to give your life--

to give Up Your life,

risking your life,
it's almost like being on
the front line in a battle.

Being able...

Wanting to give your life
for what you're doing.

Narrator: For the next 40 years,

the avant-garde music
that ornette Coleman
and many others played

would continue to inspire
and to divide

the world of jazz.