All language subtitles for JAZZ - 10 - A Masterpiece by Midnight (1960 to the Present)

[Playing saxophone]

Man: Anyone that thinks
that it's easy to go onstage

every night,
300 days a year,

and create something new...

Will never get the toll that
it takes to be a jazz musician.

Captioning made possible by
general motors

man: It's incredibly
draining to start

from ground zero every day

and truly create something

that's as close
as you can humanly get

to a masterpiece...
By midnight.

[Applause]

Unlike other art forms,

you don't have private time
to tinker with your creation.

You're out there,
you are in front of people,

and you are creating
of the moment.

And there is no net,
there is no safety valve at all.

You are out there
for all to see--

to fail or to succeed.

[Tan Playing]

Narrator: No one in jazz
risked more

than the bebop tenor saxophonist
Dexter Gordon.

He was so tall and handsome

that he could draw a crowd,
one writer said,

just by putting
his horn together.

And when he played,

listeners could hear
in his elegant, commanding,

utterly distinctive sound

faint echoes of Lester young

and all the other jazz giants
with whom he played.

But by the time
the 1960s began,

Dexter Gordon was finding work
harder and harder to get.

He was not alone.

"The kids were jamming
the rock halls,"

one musician remembered,

"and the older people were
staying home and watching TV."

Desperate musicians took jobs
wherever they could find them--

in cocktail lounges,
television studio orchestras,

backing rock-and-roll performers
on records.

Others abandoned
performing altogether.

Still others left for Europe,
in search of an audience.

In 1962, Dexter Gordon
joined that exodus.

The america he left behind
was entering an era

unlike any it had ever
experienced before--

a period of selfless struggle...

And shameless self-indulgence;

of unprecedented progress
in civil rights...

And deepening divisions
between the races.

Jazz music
would include it all,

but in the process,

it would become
a tower of babel,

bitterly divided
into schools--

dixieland, swing, bop,

hard bop, cool,

modal, free,

avant-garde.

Duke Ellington said,

"I don't know how
such great extremes as now exist

can be contained
under the one heading of jazz."

The question of what was jazz
and what wasn't

raged as it never had before,

dividing audiences,
dividing musicians...

Dividing generations.

And for many people,

the real question was
whether jazz,

the most American of art forms,
would survive at all.

[Playing Perdido]

in American life, you have...

All of these different agendas.

You have conflict all the time,

and we're attempting to achieve
Harmony through conflict.

Which seems strange
to say that,

but it's like an argument
that you have

with the intent
to work something out,

not an argument that you have
with the intent to argue.

And that's what jazz music is.

You have musicians...

And they're all standing
on the bandstand,

and each one has their
personality and their agenda.

Invariably, they're going
to play something that
you would not play,

so you have to learn
when to say a little something

and when to get
out of the way.

So you have that question
of the integrity,

the intent,
the will to play together.

That's what jazz music is.

So you have yourself--
your individual expression--

and then you have how
you negotiate that expression

in the context of that group.

And...it's exactly
like democracy.

News announcer:
There are rumors around

that this is britain's revenge
for the Boston tea party.

3,000 screaming teenagers are
at New York's Kennedy airport

to greet, you guessed it,
the Beatles.

This rock-and-roll group
has taken over

as the kingpins
of musical appreciation

among the younger element.

Some music critics call their
Harmony unmistakably diatonic.

Woman: Suddenly, all these
people nobody ever heard of

were suddenly visible,

and they said they were
making $100,000 a week
or a night.

Making a lot of money.

And a lot in the music
has been lost,

but I don't think we're dead.

I think somebody came
to kill it.

I know who it was, too.

They brought over the
English musicians from england

and covered us over,
just like you cover a blanket...

And put everything
in another perspective.

Narrator:
In February 1964,

the Beatles landed in america,

and the gap between jazz
and the general public,

already wide,
grew still wider.

There was one exception.

We were playing a club in
Chicago called the chez paree,

and our off day was Sunday.

So we got a call
from Joe glaser, Louis' agent.

He said, "I want you to go
into New York on your off day

to make a recording."

So we flew into
New York on Sunday.

We got to the studio,

and they gave Louis
the sheet music,

and Louis looked at it
and heard it down, and he said,

"you mean to tell me you called
me out here to do This?"

he hated it, you know?

But we did it.
We made the record.

Then we went back to Chicago
and finished out the engagement.

3 or 4 months later,
we were out on the road

doing one-nighters
out in Nebraska and Iowa--

way out, you know.

And every night,
we'd hear from the audience,

"hello, Dolly! Hello, Dolly!"

so the first couple of nights,
Louis ignored it,

and it got louder--
"Hello, Dolly!"

so Louis looked at me and said,
"what the hell is Hello, Dolly?"

I said, "well,
you remember that date we did
a few months ago in New York?

One of the tunes
was called Hello, Dolly!
It's from a Broadway show."

We had to call
and get the music

and learn it
and put it in the concert,

and the first time
we put it in the concert,
pandemonium broke out.

Louis Armstrong:
♪hello, Dolly ♪

♪ this is Louis, Dolly ♪

♪ it's so nice to have you
back where you belong ♪

♪ you lookin' swell, Dolly ♪

Narrator: Two months
after the Beatles' invasion,

Louis Armstrong's Hello, Dolly!

became the number-one song
in america.

Armstrong:
♪ I feel the room swaying ♪

♪while the band's playing ♪

Man: At a time with the top 40
was completely dominated
by the Beatles,

this was really the last gasp
of another age.

It was great fun,
and the song had a hook to it

that people responded to
immediately.

Armstrong:
♪ Dolly, never go away again ♪

The thing about Hello, Dolly!
Is it's a damn good record.

It's a canny record.

It's basically
Armstrong's group,

and Armstrong plays
a full 32-bar trumpet solo.

It's the real thing.
It's Louis Armstrong.

[Applause]

Narrator: No jazz musician
has experienced

that kind of popularity again.

But within a few weeks,

rock-and-roll had
recaptured the airwaves.

Armstrong:
♪ Dolly, never go away again ♪

[Applause]

[Drum playing]

Man: Musicians play
because of the world around them

and what goes on.

Abbey Lincoln: ♪ ooh ♪

♪ooh ♪

♪ ooh ♪

Man: And don't forget

there was a lot of violence
in the sixties.

Lincoln: ♪ooh, ooh ♪

Man: John F. Kennedy
was blown away in 1963,

Malcolm X, medgar evers,

Martin Luther King,
Robert Kennedy...

All of this...
Assassination went on.

The cities were burning,

the civil rights movement
was going on,

people were screaming,
the Vietnamese war...

And so the music went that way.
John Coltrane...

You know, some of trane's
solos sound like

a child being whipped
in a city.

Lincoln: ♪ooh ♪

♪ ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪

Mclean: There's just so much
that went on during the sixties

that caused the music
to really break out

into this whole hysterical
and whole violent kind of sound

that came out
of the music of that time.

Lincoln: ♪ ooh ♪

♪aaah! ♪

♪ Aaaah! ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪aah! Aah! ♪

♪ Aaah! ♪

♪ Eee! ♪

♪ Eeeee! ♪

♪ Eee! Eee! Eee! Eee! ♪

Lincoln: Max roach
and Oscar brown, Jr.,
wrote the Freedom now suite,

and it wasn't anything
I ever envisioned.

♪ Eeeee ♪

♪ ahh ♪

And I didn't think that
screaming was really music.

I didn't think
it was musical...

But it turned out to be.

[Lincoln continues with
the Freedom now suite]

Lincoln: ♪ eee eee eee ♪

Narrator:
During the 1960s,

many young African-Americans
came to see

the promise
of racial integration

as just another
white man's trick.

Some black musicians
came to believe that, too,

and struggled to reclaim jazz

from what they saw
as white control.

Lincoln: The music
was always social...

And it was always embraced
by the country,

whether they want
to admit it or not.

There are some people
in the industry who would
like to manipulate it,

and they want to take credit
and say that we didn't do it.

They'll steal your ancestors
here, if you let them.

[Switchbladplaying]

Narrator: The turbulent age had
no more turbulent musical symbol

than the bass player
Charles mingus.

As hot-tempered
and unpredictable

as he was
supremely gifted,

he had played with--
and learned from--

everyone from Charlie Parker

to Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington...

And his complex,
gospel-tinged compositions

were filled with witty allusions
to all of them.

One of his tunes was called,

if Charlie parker
Was a gunslinger,

there'd be a whole lot
Of dead copycats.

[applause and cheering]

Second only to Ellington
in the breadth and complexity

of his compositions,

mingus was, one critic said,

"jazz's most persistently
apocalyptic voice."

Man: Yeah...2, 3, 4.

Narrator: In 1960,
he and the drummer Max roach

led an "anti-festival"
at Newport to protest

what they charged was
white exploitation
of black musicians.

And when he recorded
Fables of faubus,

a scathing attack
on the segregationist
governor of Arkansas,

and Columbia records
refused to allow him

to include the uncompromising
lyrics on their album,

he put out the full version
on a smaller label...

Called "candid" records.

Man: ♪ no more
ku klux klan! ♪

♪ Name me someone
ridiculous, dannie ♪

♪ governor faubus ♪

♪ why is he so sick
and ridiculous? ♪

♪ He won't permit us
in his school ♪

♪ then he's a fool! ♪

[Hambonplaying]

Narrator:
The new musical militancy
took many forms.

Tenor saxophonist and sometime
playwright Archie shepp

wrote and performed
pieces inspired

by the murder
of medgar evers,

by the fiery rhetoric
of Malcolm X,

by the continued violence
in the south.

When white critics chided him
for expressing

too much "anger"
in his music,

shepp wrote, "we are not
angry men. We are enraged.

You can no longer
defer my dream," he said.

"I'm gonna sing it,
dance it, scream it...

And if need be, I'll steal it
from this very earth."

[Dreaming of the master
Playing]

Beginning in the mid-sixties
all across the country,

young musicians,
both black and white,

tried to control their music
by forming cooperatives--

the jazz composers guild,

the black artists group,

the association
for the advancement
of creative musicians.

The art ensemble of Chicago,

which often performed
in African-inspired
makeup and costumes,

created music
that drew upon everything

from waltzes
and funeral marches

to free jazz
and rhythm and blues.

They called what they played
not jazz,

trumpeter Lester bowie said,
but "great black music."

Bowie: Well, the first thing
we figured we better do

is change the name.

The name "jazz" had a lot
of negative connotations.

It was whorehouse music,
nigger music,

bullshit music,
devil's music...

So we thought about it,

and we came upon
the term "great black music."

We wanted to distinguish
ourselves from

a normal jazz quintet or quartet
that played taverns.

We wanted to--
the music was an art form,

and we wanted
to present it as such.

But there was no place
to do this,

and there was
no one to help us.

No one was supporting the arts
or thinking about the musicians.

So we said, "we've got
to take care of this ourselves."

Narrator: Not since the days of
black swan records in the 1920s

were African-Americans
fully involved

with every aspect
of their art--

from booking and recording
to promotion and distribution.

But nothing
the art ensemble of Chicago--

or any other avant-garde
black cooperative did--

seemed able to win back
a black audience.

The art ensemble
once found itself playing

to just 3 people
in its own hometown,

and it attracted
its largest following

among white college students...
In France.

[Rick, kick, sha Playing]

In an age when musicians
questioned everything,

no musician was more
adventurous--or controversial--

than the avant-garde pianist
Cecil Taylor.

Trained at the new england
conservatory,

he came to jazz from
the world of classical music.

His style owed as much
to stravinsky and webern

as it did to the eclectic roster
of jazz masters

he most admired--

bud Powell, Dave brubeck,

Duke Ellington,
and thelonious monk.

Giddins: He brings together
so many influences

from jazz and
the classical world,

and he makes them
into something new.

And it's very difficult
to hear him at first,

because you're waiting
for the caesuras,

the pauses, the places again
to kind of rest up,

and he doesn't
give them to you.

But after you listen
to him for a while,

you can become mesmerized

by the hugeness of
his attack and his sound.

Narrator: Pure energy drove
his music, Cecil Taylor said.

But some critics
called him a heretic

and insisted that his music
was not jazz at all.

Taylor came to symbolize
everything people loved--

and everything they hated--
about the avant-garde.

Man: Cecil found it hard
to get work for a while

because
he was so different.

Not only different musically,

but nobody could quite
figure him out Personally.

and for a time,
he was delivering sandwiches

and coffee and stuff
for some kind of coffee shop.

But at night in his loft,
he told me,

he would have concerts--
imaginary concerts--

and he'd play
a complete repertory

to this audience
that wasn't there.

And he said that kept his--
not only his spirit going,

but he was still able to get
his music through,

even into the--
into the air.

[Playing piano]

Narrator:
Cecil Taylor once said

that since he prepared
for his concerts,

the audience
should prepare, too.

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.

Giddins: You have to learn
to listen to Cecil Taylor

in the way that I think,
in European music,

you had to stretch
your willingness

to hear a piece
of music develop.

When the third symphony
was first performed
by Beethoven,

critics said,
"this is absurd.

No one will ever sit still
for a 40-minute symphony."

They were used to the 15-minute
symphonies of haydn.

So Beethoven's response was
to write a 90-minute symphony.

And mahler wrote
longer symphonies,

and we've learned
how to hear more complicated

and longer music that makes
greater demands on us.

Cecil Taylor's music

is a music that
will hold your attention,

but I think you have to,
in a sense, train yourself

to hear the way it works.

Man: Musicians seemed to
think that importance in music

involved inventing the language,
rather than using the language.

And I think it's been
a major misunderstanding
in all kinds of music

that I must be changing
the vocabulary

or nobody is going to listen.

But it has never drawn
much of an audience,

and, as I've said
about Cecil Taylor,

whom I respect
but do not listen to,

that he has every right
to do exactly what he's doing

and exactly
what he wants to do,

and I have a right
to listen to somebody else.

[Cheering and applause]

[Things ain't what
They used to be Playing]

The title of this number,
ladies and gentlemen,

Things ain't what
They used to be,

and this time, we use it for
the purpose of giving background

to this finger-snapping
business.

And, of course,
you are cordially invited

to join
the finger-snapping.

Of course, one never snaps
one's fingers on the beat.

It's considered aggressive.

You don't push it.
You just let it fall.

And if you would like
to be conservatively hip,

then, at the same time,
tilt the left ear lobe.

And if you're cooler
than that,

then, of course, you tilt
the left earlobe on the beat

and snap the finger
on the after-beat.

And then you really don't care.

And so by routining
one's finger-snapping

and choreographing
one's earlobe-tilting,

one can become as cool
as one wishes to be.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.
It's been wonderful,

and...i hope we'll have this
pleasure again sometime soon.

Listen...

I saw him one day when
he was in his early seventies--

I guess late sixties.

He had just come off one of
those horrible road tours.

I used to watch the itinerary.

He'd be going from
Fargo, north Dakota,

to Chicago,
to Boise, Idaho,

and he looked terrible.

Tired.

I said, "you know, on your ascap
royalties, you could retire."

He said, "retire? Retire?
To what?"

Man: See, in our century,

it's hard to understand
somebody who could handle

all of these complicated
personalities...

Deal with the roller-coaster
complexities of show business...

Meet all of these
different deadlines...

Write music for singers,

write music for different kinds
of instrumentalists,

write for movies...

You know, do all of
that kind of stuff...

And have such
a high batting average
in terms of the quality.

They just kind of--those people
are hard to understand.

Well, they're not hard
to understand;

they're not to B Eunderstood.

Narrator: Duke Ellington
stayed on the road

all through the 1960s,
traveling the world.

But he also continued to play
high school proms

and college dances,

state fairs and elks halls...

Just as he always had.

Audiences expected to hear
the old favorites

that he and his longtime
collaborator, Billy strayhorn,

had arranged...

And he happily complied.

[Cheering and applause]

Johnny Hodges!

[Tourist point of view
Playing]

Wynton marsalis: I think that
the reason Duke didn't doubt

his music or his vision
is because he loved hearing it.

Every night, he could hear it.

And also, he was
always developing.

He's a master of form.

He's like a person playing
with different puzzles.

He's always
moving things around

and putting them
in different places,

so he's creating
thousands of forms.

Narrator: Ellington
continued to experiment,

expressing his religious faith
by presenting

a series of concerts of
what he called "sacred music,"

and making
challenging albums

with some of the leading
innovators of the day,

including Charles mingus,
Max roach,

and the saxophone player
John Coltrane.

In 1966, all 3 members of
the jury for the pulitzer prize
for music

recommended that
Ellington be given

a special prize
for his life's work.

The advisory board
turned them down;

no such award had ever
been given in the past.

Two of the 3 judges
resigned in protest.

The 66-year-old Ellington
professed to be unperturbed.

"Fate is being kind to me,"
he told a reporter.

"Fate doesn't want me
to be too famous too young."

[Blood counPlaying]

Narrator:
Ellington was on the road

in Reno, Nevada,
on may 31, 1967,

when he got a telephone call.

Billy strayhorn,

his close friend and co-composer
for nearly 30 years,

was dead of cancer.

Ellington fell silent.

Someone asked him if
he was going to be all right.

"No, I'm not going to be
all right," Ellington answered.

"Nothing is all right now."

On April 29, 1969,

almost two years
after strayhorn's death,

Duke Ellington turned 70,

and president Richard Nixon paid
official tribute to him

at the white house.

Nixon: The president
of the United States of America

awards this presidential
medal of freedom

to Edward Kennedy Ellington.

In the royalty
of American music,

no man swings more
or stands higher
than the Duke.

[Cheering and applause]

Ellington:
"Thank you very much,
Mr. President.

Thank you,
ladies and gentlemen.

And, of course, we speak
of freedom of expression.

We speak of freedom, generally,
as being something very sweet

and fat...
And things like that,

but at the end, when
we get down to the payoff,

what we actually say is that,
uh, we would like very much

to mention the 4 major
freedoms that my friend

and writing and arranging
composer, Billy strayhorn,

lived by and enjoyed,

and that was
freedom from hate,
unconditionally...

Freedom from self-pity,

freedom from fear of
possibly doing something

that may help someone else
more than it would him...

And freedom from
the kind of pride that
could make a man feel

that he is better
than his brother.

[Applause]

Narrator: Ellington
kissed the president 4 times.

When Nixon asked him why,

Ellington replied,
"one for each cheek."

[Playing Impressions]

Man: What happened was
that the avant-garde movement

got its high priest
with John Coltrane.

And Coltrane came along
and really thought of himself

as making a religious music.

Of course,
it was avant-garde music,

and it was...It was
sort of free, and it was...

People described
his saxophone playing,

with these solos that
were going on for 40 minutes
all in the upper register,

speaking in tongues
and being possessed by spirits

and all this sort of stuff.

Giddins: Coltrane clearly was
asking a lot of the audience.

I mean, some people
were just offended.

It was noisy and loud
and...And relentless,

and they ran from it.

I know M Yfirst response
when I heard him

do it live
for the first time.

It was truly a white noise.

And when it was over,
I felt elated,

and I couldn't explain why.

I certainly couldn't
have analyzed what was
going on up there,

but there was
something about the force

and the sincerity
and the drive.

This music seemed
to just take you

out of the conventional world,
and it defined the period.

Narrator:
John Coltrane insisted

that jazz could speak
to people's souls,

could help to heal
a corrupt and tortured world.

His vision extended far beyond
race and nationality.

"The main thing a musician
would like to do," he said,

"is to give
the listener a picture

of the wonderful things
he senses in the universe."

Wynton marsalis: The thing
that's always in John Coltrane

is the lyrical shout
of the preacher

in the heat and
full fury of attempting

to transform the congregation.

And that's the source
of John Coltrane's power.

His music is very earnest.

All right, you think of
the most earnest person
you ever met.

That's John Coltrane.

Just well-meaning...

And his sound
just projects such deep belief,

and it's so--it's so warm
with spiritual substance

and compassion,
and his playing is just--

it's so lyrical and beautiful,
and it's singing and soaring,

but in the middle of
the sound itself is

an earnestness that,
when you hear it,

it changes the way
you perceive the world.

Narrator: In 1964,
Coltrane made one of

the best-selling jazz albums
of the decade,

and one of the most influential
records of all time.

It was a 4-part devotional suite
called A love supreme.

[a love supremPlaying]

That's one of the first
records I ever heard,

and I hope it's
the last record I ever hear.

I mean, it's one of the greatest
records of all time.

I think with that record,
you feel that the artist--

you feel that
John Coltrane is just...

He's laying his soul
out there.

It's right there.

It's one of the purest
forms of expression

you're ever going to hear.

Branford marsalis:
The first time I heard
A love supreme,

it's one of those records
I couldn't put it down.

I listened to it
for, like, 6 months straight.

I just kept listening to it.

I would put on A love supreme
In the morning for breakfast.

Then I'd put it on at lunch,

and I'd put it on
when I'd go to bed at night.

I would put it on when
I was watching the television.

It was just on all the time.

I couldn't believe that kind
of sustained intensity.

And...everybody talked about
the physical challenge of it,

but as I spent more time
listening to it,

and as I got older, I realized
that once you put yourself

in a certain intellectual
frame of mind,

I mean, what is physical?

Because it was almost as though
he had transcended the body

when he started playing.

Narrator:
Over the next two years,

Coltrane put out
10 more albums,

each one more experimental
than the last.

In 1966,
someone asked him

what his plans were
for the next decade.

"To try to become
a Saint," he said.

But he had
only months to live.

John Coltrane,
40 years old,

died of cancer
on July 16, 1967.

[Playing Naima]

cuscuna: When you think
about John Coltrane...

He recorded from 1955
till his death in 1967.

The body of work and
the amount of changes...

The amount of artistic
success in those 12 years
is astonishing.

Some people are
shooting comets,

and we just have
to appreciate their pain

and be lucky that
we were on this earth

at the right time
to really appreciate them.

Man: Let's welcome miles Davis
and the quintet.

[Cheering and applause]

Narrator: In the mid-1960s,
miles Davis,

the great, perpetually restless
trumpet player,

changed direction once again
and formed a new quintet...

Featuring Wayne shorter
on saxophone...

And one of
the best rhythm sections
in jazz history--

the bass player
Ron Carter...

Drummer Tony Williams,
just 17 when he joined Davis...

And the pianist herbie hancock,
who began his career

performing a d-major
piano concerto by Mozart

with the Chicago symphony
at the age of 11.

Hancock: We weren't
playing chords anymore.

It's really hard to describe
what we were doing.

We didn't talk in detail about
what we were doing, it just--

things would kind of
just happen, you know,

and everybody was constantly
working on one thing or another,

and you just had to keep
your ears open,

keep your eyes open,
and keep your heart open.

Narrator: Miles Davis
had always been skeptical

about the avant-garde,

but now
he edged toward it,

creating some of
the most intricate

and imaginative jazz
ever played.

Redman: I don't know
if there's ever been

a group of 5 musicians
who communicated spontaneously

with each other as well
as those 5 musicians did.

They could do anything
with any form, with any tune,

because they knew each other
so well as musicians.

What Ron Carter
and Tony Williams

and herbie hancock did

was they created
an elasticity.

They could stretch sections,

they could stretch or
contract the tempo...

And there was an empathy
among those 5 people

where they could
think as one.

They were never inhibited
by structure,

they were never inhibited
by predictability,

they were never inhibited
by musical signposts.

They were free to go
anywhere they wanted to,

and they knew everyone else
would follow.

That's a luxury that
few of us ever experience--

in marriage, or in music,
or in any kind of art form

or any kind of teamwork.

[Applause]

Narrator: Davis continued
to play his new music

in concerts
around the world,

but in his spare time, he was
listening to something else.

[Higheplaying]

♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪

♪ the beat is getting stronger ♪

Narrator:
In the summer of 1969,

in the face of mounting
competition from rock-and-roll,

George wein, the organizer
of the Newport jazz festival,

decided to include led zeppelin
and sly and the family stone

among the jazz giants he loved.

♪ Baby, baby, baby,
don't break my heart, yeah ♪

♪ all right ♪

♪don't break your heart ♪

♪ yeah ♪

♪ boom laka laka laka,
boom laka laka laka ♪

Wein: Every night
was sold out.

We drew about something like
80,000 people in the 4 days,

where normally we would draw
35,000 or 40,000 or 50,000.

And miles, who normally
came up to Newport and didn't--

didn't appear until
he was due on the stage

and left immediately
afterwards as fast as
he could get out of town,

stayed the entire 4 days.

♪ Gonna take it higher ♪

Wein: And he watched
the reaction of that crowd,

and he saw those kids.

It changed his life forever.

♪ Higher! ♪

♪ Want to take you
higher ♪

♪ higher! ♪

Wynton marsalis:
I think that when miles stood up

and saw sly
and the family stone...

They got thousands of
people hollering and screaming
at their music.

They got the electric guitars
going, the afros,

the psychedelic pants,
the groove is--

the"boom boom boom" is hot,

and everybody's hot,
and they're screaming.

He's playing the trumpet
in a jazz band.

He could feel that
he was old and out-of-date,

and he did not want
to grow old.

Narrator: Miles Davis
was 43 years old that summer,

and even he was no longer
playing to the sell-out crowds

that had once flocked
to hear him.

The president of
Columbia records was worried.

Miles should be playing
for young rock fans, he said;

that was the way
to sell records.

"I started realizing
that most rock musicians

didn't know anything
about music," Davis said.

"But they were popular,

and I wasn't prepared
to be a memory yet."

[Spanish kePlaying]

Hancock: Miles always wanted
to reach the people.

He always wanted
to make a presentation

of what he felt
in his heart.

But how
that could be expressed

and the sounds
that he could choose

didn't have to be acoustic.

It could be electric.

The beats didn't have
to be jazz beats,

they could be kind of
rock-and-roll backbeats...

And he could still play
the way he played.

Narrator: Davis discarded
the jazz standards

that had made him famous

and replaced
traditional instruments
with electronic ones.

The result would be
called "fusion."

Wynton marsalis:
That was the first music of jazz
that was not horn-based...

Or singing.

That music was based on
electronic instruments.

The electric guitar is the main
instrument, or a synthesizer.

Narrator: Davis'
best-known fusion album,

released in 1970,
was called Bitches brew.

it sold more than 400,000 copies
in its first year.

Over the next 4 years,

Davis managed to record
15 more albums,

and played
to big crowds in places

where only rock musicians
had appeared before.

[Playing Jack Johnson]

early: Miles had decided
he was going to be the
ultimate Walt Whitman.

He was going to absorb
everything,

so he put in
all these instruments.

He had sitars and tabla drums
and electric guitars...

2, 3 keyboardists,
all this kind of stuff.

He just threw in
all the elements--
free jazz, jazz rock...

Everything became thrown
into this thing.

And what happened, I think,
was that the very elements

that made miles such a great
bandleader in the earlier bands,

when he was playing
acoustic music,

when he was able to bring out
everybody's individuality

within the framework
of his own vision,

fell apart with the fusion bands
'cause it was too much going on,

and too much of people
not listening to each other.

So instead of being the kind of
challenge that jazz normally is,

where people are
listening to each other

and trying to solo
but complement at the same time,

just became playing tennis
without a net.

Narrator:
Some musicians and critics

now began to accuse Davis
of having abandoned his art,

of selling out...

But by helping
to fuse jazz with rock,

miles Davis had created a vast
new audience for his music

and spawned a host
of other fusion groups

that would continue to explore
the hybrid sound for decades.

[Starduplaying]

Glaser: I'm just
very happy to be on earth

when there is
Louis Armstrong.

People try to imagine
what it was like

to be on earth
before Mozart.

Mozart's music is
so important to us.

Try to imagine
what it was like

to be on earth
before Louis Armstrong.

It has meant so much
to so many people, his music.

It is--he makes people happy.

I can't imagine
a higher calling in life

than making people feel joy.

Narrator: Louis Armstrong
had seen it all--

New Orleans in the time
before jazz began

to spread across the country,

the first days of recording,
when he had revolutionized

first instrumental music
and then American singing.

He had witnessed the swing era
and the bebop years,

had endured the rejection
of a younger generation,

and stood his ground
on civil rights.

And he was still on the road,

as celebrated abroad
as he was at home.

How you doing?

[Band playing
Rockin' chair]

[Louis Armstrong playing
slow trumpet]

By the time he gets
to the later years,

there's so much
information in one note

that he doesn't have to play...
[Humming fast scat]

He could just play...
[Humming slowly]

But it's some wisdom.

Now, he's going to state
that melody for you,

and there's going to be so much
soul and feeling in the melody,

it's just going to be warm.

You're just going to want
to swim in it.

That light is still on,

and as long
as that light is on,

Louis Armstrong is important.

And that light was
always on.

That's something
that god gave him.

That's something
that's in this man.

No other man has that.

[Crowd cheering]

Narrator:
Between engagements,

Armstrong always
came back to Lucille

and the modest house in queens
he and she had bought together

when they were first married.

He never saw any need
for anything fancier.

Well, Louis was
a people person,

and if Louis came home
from the neighborhood,

very often the neighbors
would have banners out--

"welcome home, pops."

Armstrong: ♪ when the sun sets
in the sky ♪

Jacobs: He'd sit on the steps
in the front of his house

and buy kids good humors...

And he'd ask them,
"was your homework good?

Were you a good boy?"

Armstrong:
♪ that's my home ♪

Jacobs: And he and Lucille
would have a party

and have
the neighborhood kids in.

[That's my home
Continues]

Narrator:
But by the late 1960s,

his huge heart was failing.

He was hospitalized
for a time,

returned to the road,

fell ill again,

lost weight.

His doctor ordered him
to stop playing the trumpet,

begged him not
to try to record,

to stay off the stage.

Armstrong couldn't do it.

[Band playing
The saints go marching in]

narrator:
In July of 1970,

George wein staged
a celebration at Newport

for Armstrong's
70th birthday.

Many of the musicians with whom
he had played over the years

had come back to be with him.

Wein: He was ill
for a couple of years, and...

And he was quite frail.

The doctor didn't
want him to play,

but he allowed him
to come to Newport.

It's this...Re-energizing

when the opportunity for him
to do what he wanted to do

and to know that he was
out there reaching people...

And he put everything he had
into that evening.

Narrator: Wein wanted to save
Armstrong's strength,

and suggested he simply walk
onstage unannounced,

rather than sing his
theme song.

Armstrong, weak as he was,

wouldn't hear of it.

Giddins: It was very important
for an entertainer to
have a theme song,

because only the really
great ones had songs that
instantly meant Them.

so Louis Armstrong had
a sentimental southern tune--

sleepytime down south.
He was very attached to it.

He loved the--
it was a beautiful melody.

You know, you didn't give
something like that up lightly.

Armstrong:
For as long as I live,

sleepytime down south
Will be my...

My lifelong number,
because it...Lives with me,

and it's my theme song,
and when I walk out
on that stage and say--

and everybody's
waiting, quiet--

♪ now the pale moon's
shining ♪

♪ on the fields below ♪

♪ the folks are crooning ♪

♪ soft and low ♪

♪ you needn't tell me, boy ♪

♪ because I know,
yes, yes ♪

♪ when it's sleepytime
down south ♪

[Singing scat]

♪ Soft wind blowin'
through the pinewood trees ♪

♪ the folks out there ♪

♪ live a life of ease ♪

♪ when old mammy falls
on her knees ♪

♪ when I say... ♪

[Singing scat]

♪ Oh ♪

♪ good evenin', everybody ♪

The show's on, daddy.

[Band playing
Sleepytime down south]

wein: When he dressed up
for that evening,

he had on a nice brown suit,
as I remember...

[Crowd cheering]

And there was a glow
on his face.

There was a glow
in his eyes.

There was a glow
in his skin.

And he just sang so beautifully,
and he projected.

It was like,
"hey, I'm here again."

You know, "I'm still here.
I'm still Louis Armstrong,

and I'm still going to give you
a great evening of music
and entertainment."

♪ Now the pale moon's
shining ♪

♪ on the fields below ♪

Narrator:
Tributes poured in
from fellow musicians.

"Louis Armstrong,"
bing Crosby said,

"is the beginning and the end
of music in america."

Armstrong: ♪ you needn't
tell me, boy... ♪

Narrator: Dizzy Gillespie
said simply...

"No him, no me."

Armstrong: ♪ when it's
sleepytime down south ♪

♪ yes ♪

Narrator: After his
appearance at Newport,

Armstrong went back
on the road,

but he soon grew
dangerously weak again.

In march of 1971,

he was offered
a two-week engagement

at the Waldorf-astoria
in Manhattan.

His doctors were against it,

afraid he would die onstage.

Shaw: He had
so much music in him,

it's--no way he could have
lived and not played.

One of the worst experiences
I had with him--

I did the last
3 weeks with him,

and we were at the empire room
at the Waldorf-astoria.

And the doctor--he'd been
in intensive care--

the doctor told him,
said, "Louis, don't do it.
You can't do it."

Louis said,
"well, I got a contract.
I got to do it. My fans."

And they...Had to help him...

On.
[Sighs]

[Voice cracking]
They...

They had to help him on and off.
[Sighs]

[Birds singing]

Narrator: In the early morning
hours of July 6, 1971,

Louis Armstrong--

the most important figure
in the history of jazz--

died at his home in queens.

Jacobs: And Oscar Cohen called
and said, "Phoebe,

pops is gone."

[Voice shaking]
Uh...

My heart broke...

But I guess I knew,
in the flash of that moment,

that Louis would never die,

because Louis was a spirit.

He was a spirit.
Inasmuch as he encompassed
my life,

I know he must have touched
on millions of people.

Wynton marsalis:
Louis Armstrong's overwhelming
message is one of love...

Really, when you hear
his music,

it's of joy.

His music is so joyous.

He was just not going
to be defeated

by the forces of life,

and these forces visit
all of us.

There's always something.
My great-great-grandmother
used to say

that life has a board
for every behind,

and it's a board
just fit to yours, so...

Maybe your board is
not going to work on
somebody else's behind,

and when it's your turn,
you're going to come up
and that paddle is going

to be put on your Booty,
and it's going to hurt
as bad as it can hurt.

And Louis Armstrong is there
to tell you, after you get
that paddling,

"it's all right, son."

♪ Whoa, dinah ♪

♪ is there anyone finer ♪

♪ in the state of Carolina ♪

♪ if there is and you know,
show her to me ♪

♪ dinah ♪
[Singing scat]

♪ ...to the eyes
of dinah Lee ♪

♪ baby, every night,
when I ♪

♪ shake with fright, oh ♪

♪ 'cause my dinah might
change her mind ♪

[Singing scat]

♪ Oh, man, oh ♪

♪ dinah ♪

♪ dinah ♪

♪ oh, dinah,
oh, babe ♪

♪ dinah Lee ♪

♪ dinah, dinah, dinah... ♪

[Singing scat]

♪ Oh, baby,
every night when I... ♪

[Singing scat]

[Playing
trumpet solo]

[Crowd cheering]

Narrator: In the years
after Louis Armstrong's death,

Duke Ellington continued
to write...

In restaurants and nightclubs,

in airplanes and taxicabs
and hotel rooms.

"Music is my mistress,"
he said,

"and she plays
second fiddle to no one."

Giddins: Ellington's
last decade is one of
the best in his whole career.

When strayhorn died
in 1967,

Ellington,
as if to compensate--

for the first time, not having
strayhorn by his side
after 28 years--

he wrote more than ever,
and the pieces became

more and more experimental
and different--

the Latin American suite,
The afro-eurasian eclipse,

which is, you know,
a real attempt to--to describe

a one-world music in
the language of ellingtonia.

Narrator:
But in the spring of 1972,

Ellington was diagnosed
with lung cancer.

Characteristically,

he told no one.

Woman: My grandfather
never complained.

That was part of that
upbringing--

that you never show your
true feelings.

So if you were ill
or if you were in pain,

it was impolite.

I'm sure...When doors
were closed--

behind the dressing room,

in his own private place--

there were complaints,
there was truth

about what was really going on,
but none of us ever saw that.

[Playing Sentimental lady]

man: Uh, what tune,
since you've gone
back to the piano,

what tune, um...

Have you written,
which you think is
the best?

Oh...

The one coming up
tomorrow...

Always.

Narrator: For the first time
in his long career,

he began canceling
public appearances.

When Ellington was
hospitalized in New York,

he asked that his electric piano
be brought to his room

so that he could
keep on working--

on a comic opera,

a score for
a dance troupe,

still more sacred music.

When his eyesight
began to fail,

he simply wrote larger...

Sometimes using the backs of
the hundreds of get-well cards

that flooded his room.

Edward Kennedy Ellington--

considered by many

the greatest of all
American composers--

died on may 24, 1974.

I think we always feel
we never said enough...

Or did enough for someone...

So good to you,
and, uh...

It just took
everything out of me.

A person has gone,
but you keep him alive

in your memories
and your thoughts.

Each one of us had
a different experience.

I still remember...Looking up
from the trombone section

when Duke would come on
at night, take his place
at the piano,

and he'd look up
and just smile.

You know, "we're here
together again, aren't we?

Come on, let's go."
And it was great.

Narrator: He was buried
in woodlawn cemetery
in the Bronx,

not far from Louis Armstrong...

And next to his mother,

who had been the first
to tell him

that he was blessed.

[Band playing
In a sentimental mood]

Narrator: In the 1960s,

the city of New Orleans
tore down the house

in which Louis Armstrong
was born...

To make way
for a police station.

By then, the Lincoln gardens
on the south side of Chicago,

where Armstrong had played
with king Oliver,

had long since
closed its doors.

Law and order had come
to Kansas City,

and most of the wide-open clubs,
in which Lester young

and count basie
and Charlie Parker
once played, vanished.

The cotton club in Harlem,

where Duke Ellington first
broadcast his Jungle music,

was gone.

So was the savoy ballroom,

where chick webb
once took on all comers,

and Ella Fitzgerald
first became a star.

Birdland, the club named
for Charlie Parker,

abandoned jazz

for rhythm and blues.

In 1968,

the last club on 52nd street

finally closed its doors.

Even the five spot,

where ornette Coleman
and John Coltrane

first performed
their demanding music,

eventually went out of business.

During the late 1930s,

jazz and swing had provided
70% of the profits

in the music industry.

By the mid-1970s,

it was less than 3%.

In 1975,

miles Davis himself said
that jazz was dead--

"the music of the museum."

Branford marsalis:
Jazz just kind of died.

It just kind of
went away for a while.

There were still people playing.

There were still
people playing,

but to be honest,
with the exception of a few

like Kenny barron or Ron Carter
or sir Roland Hanna--

who really just stayed
with it, you know--

a lot of the more talented
younger generation

that was supposed to come up
did something else,

and that had never
happened before.

Wynton marsalis: Today you go in
to make a modern recording,

all this technology--
the bass plays first,

then the drums come in later,
then they track the trumpet,

then the singer comes in,
then they ship the tape
somewhere...

Well, none of the musicians
have played together.

You can't play
jazz music that way.

In order for you
to play jazz,

you've got
to listen to them.

The music forces you
at all times

to address what
other people are thinking

and for you to interact
with them with empathy

and to deal with the process
of working things out.

And, uh...That's how
our music really could teach

what the meaning
of American democracy is...

The thing in jazz that will
get bix beiderbecke up
out of his bed

at 2:00 in the morning
to pick that cornet up

and practice into the pillow
for another two or 3 hours...

Or that would make
Louis Armstrong
travel around the world

for 50-something years
just nonstop,

get up out of his sickbed,
crawl up on the bandstand,
and play...

The thing that would make
Duke Ellington,

the thing that would make
thelonious monk, miles Davis,

Charlie Parker,
Mary Lou Williams...

The thing that would make
all of these people give
their lives for this--

and they did give
their lives for it--

is that it gives us
a glimpse

into what america is going to be
when it becomes itself.

And this music tells you
that it will become itself.

And when you get
a taste of that...

There just is nothing else
you're going to taste
that's as sweet.

That's a sweet taste, man.

[Piano playing
Let's get down]

[band joins in]

Narrator: In 1976,

Dexter Gordon came back
to america.

For most of the past
15 years,

he had been living
in Europe,

where jazz still had
an enthusiastic audience,

and where musicians
could always find work.

When Gordon opened
at the village vanguard,

he wasn't sure
how he would be received.

Woman: Well, it was
a whole new era

when Dexter Gordon walked
into this room.

People came from all over
because they knew about him--

he didn't think they did--
and they were there

waiting for him to appear,
and here he came,

this long, tall, beautiful man--
so elegant, you know.

[Crowd cheering]

Lorraine Gordon: And he just
played this gorgeous music,
and people just went nuts,

and happy and thrilled,
and gave him the honor
he truly deserved.

[Gordon playing
Let's get down]

man: Dexter Gordon was one
of my favorite musicians
when I was growing up.

My dad played saxophone
and had a lot of records
of Dexter Gordon.

And I was present
at the village vanguard
during his homecoming week,

and it was just amazing
to feel the impact of his
sound and his presence.

To be in a room with him...

At that time, for me--
I was 23 years old at the time--

and...it just hit me
like a ton of bricks--

just his sound,
the power of his tone.

Narrator: He played
straight-ahead jazz--

without synthesizers,
without electronic bass,

without a drum machine--

and the crowds stood
to cheer him after every tune.

Columbia had
offered him a contract,

and the special two-record live
album he made at the vanguard

was called Homecoming.

it sold surprisingly well.

There was still
an audience for the music

that flowed directly
from Louis Armstrong

and Lester young
and Charlie Parker.

[Song ends]

[Applause and whistling]

Narrator: A year
after Dexter Gordon's
triumphant comeback,

the drummer art blakey
was in New York,

auditioning young musicians
for his jazz messengers...

Just as he had been doing
for 3 decades.

Cuscuna: On this night,
this young kid sat in
on trumpet,

and he was astonishing.

His ideas were fresh
and different

and very concise and clear--
very clear thinker.

And at the end of the set,
I said--i asked art--i said,

"who the hell is that?"
And he said,

"well, that's
Ellis marsalis' kid."

And Ellis marsalis was
a wonderful New Orleans pianist

who was little-known
outside New Orleans,

but a favorite musician
of a lot of us.

And he introduced me to him,
and later on he said,

"he's in his first year
at Juilliard and, of course,

"you know, I couldn't
do that to Ellis.

"I just couldn't pull him out
of school and offer him the job,

you know, so I can't
give him the gig."

But two sets later,
about 4:00 in the morning,

we were all hanging out
at the club, and I said,

"so, art, did you decide
on any new members?"

He said, "just one--
wynton marsalis."

[Marsalis playing
Soon all will know]

narrator: Wynton marsalis
was born in 1961 in New Orleans,

a year before Dexter Gordon
began his self-imposed
exile in Europe.

He was brought up
surrounded by music.

His father, Ellis,
was a pianist,

composer,
and music educator.

His older brother branford
played the saxophone.

Two younger brothers,
delfeayo and Jason,

would become musicians,
as well.

By his mid-teens,
marsalis was playing

in all kinds of groups
around New Orleans:

Marching bands,
funk bands,

and the New Orleans
civic orchestra.

Wynton marsalis:
We had a partner
of mine across the street.

We would play records
for each other, you know?

Then it would be, like,
tower of power

and early earth, wind & fire,
Marvin gaye, Stevie wonder.

You know,
everybody would bring in,
like, "what's going on?"

So I took one of my father's
Coltrane albums out.

It was actually
My favorite things,

'cause I liked the cover--
it was blue and red.

And trane was playing
the soprano, and I said,
"man, let's check this out.

Let's check this trane out."
So I put trane on--

♪ doo ding, doo ding,
doo doo doo ling ♪

So they started playing
My favorite things, And
we're all, like, "yeah."

You know, trane and them played.
The song was, like, 10 or 15
minutes or something.

It was too long
for the cats, you know,

so everybody was like,
"yeah, you know, ok."

And I was like, "yeah, you know,
I kind of like that."

And then I started
listening to Giant steps,

and every day I would come home
in the summertime

and put that
Giant stepAlbum on.

And I can hear trane
right now, you know?
♪ doo Dee doo ♪

It's just something
in the sound of it.

[Playin Surrey with
The fringe on top]

narrator: Marsalis soon
began to soak up

all the jazz history
he could,

grounding his
own experiments

in a thorough knowledge
of the music's rich past.

Wein: And I listened
to him play...

And i--i started to cry.

I couldn't believe it,
because I never thought

I'd hear a young black
musician...Play that way,

and I could hear that
he had been listening
to Louis Armstrong.

And that meant so much to me,
because the only musicians--

young musicians--that paid
attention to Louis Armstrong
were white musicians.

Young African-American musicians
did not pay attention
to Louis Armstrong.

[Playing Caravan]

narrator:
By the age of 21,

after just two years
on the road with art blakey,

wynton marsalis was a star,
the leader of his own group.

His first record had sold more
than 100,000 copies--

unheard of in the 1980s
for an acoustic jazz album.

Cuscuna: Wynton was the first
new acoustic jazz player

with something to say.

And fortunately thereafter,
with his brother branford

and a lot of people
that wynton knew,

the floodgates opened,
and suddenly in the eighties

there were a lot of new players
that pumped new blood into jazz,

which was a--which was
very much of a saving grace.

Narrator: By the late 1980s
and early 1990s,

marsalis' success inspired
record companies

to seek out
and promote new stars.

In 1992,

he was named artistic director
of jazz at Lincoln center,

and 5 years later,

wynton marsalis became
the first jazz composer

ever to win
the pulitzer prize in music.

[Band playing Death letter]

but by the very nature
of the music,

no individual artist has
ever been the sole focus
of jazz in america.

Dozens of supremely
talented musicians

now feed the many
tributaries of jazz.

Christian McBride...

Lewis Nash...

David Murray...

Steve Coleman...

Joe lovano...

Jacky terrasson...

Greg osby...

Geri Allen...

Marcus Roberts...

Joshua redman...

And Cassandra Wilson...

♪ I got a letter
this morning... ♪

Narrator: ...Who has
found brand-new ways
of singing everything,

from pop tunes and the ballads
of Billie holliday

to early delta blues.

Wilson: ♪ got a letter
this morning ♪

♪ how do you reckon
it read? ♪

♪ Mmm, it said, ♪

♪ "hurry, hurry,
on account of the man
you love is dead"♪

♪ well, I packed up
my suitcase ♪

♪ took off down the road ♪

♪ when I got there ♪

♪ he was lying
on the cooling board ♪

♪ I packed up my suitcase ♪

♪ took off down the road ♪

♪ mmm ♪

♪ when I got there ♪

♪ he was lying
on the cooling board ♪

Narrator: The jazz world is
filled with young artists,

eager to Mark out
their own paths

and committed
to avoiding the pitfalls

to which so many of their
forebears had fallen prey.

♪ ...where he used
to lay ♪

♪ I got up
two in the morning ♪

♪ right, right at
the break of day ♪

Woman: I believe that you can
communicate tragedy...

By learning the lesson
from someone else's tragedy.

I think that's
the whole point, is that...

For these people who have
already done this for us--

our predecessors--

they've lived these lives,
they've done the drugs,

they've done...You know...

All of these things, and...

I think the point of it
is that we now...

Benefit from that, and we stand
on their shoulders,

and we have the responsibility
of extending the music.

We have the responsibility of...

Pushing the music
into the 21st century.

Crouch: One of the things
that's very important

about what's going on
in jazz today is that

young people involved
in jazz...

Are people who have
real courage.

Courage is something
you can't buy.

Courage is something
you can't sell.

And when somebody actually
takes a real risk--

like these young people do
who go into jazz,

knowing that they're never
going to be like
puff daddy combs

or Madonna
or any of those people--

they're not going
to get into that.

So that assertion among
young people of real courage,

real aesthetic belief--
that can only beget good.

Redman: I think jazz is
as alive and as well

and as active and creative
as it's ever been.

I think there's a lot happening
in terms of the combination

of jazz with other sounds
from around the world,

or from within
American music.

[Singing scat
to Love for sale]

redman: There's a lot happening
with the combination

of jazz with r & b,

jazz with Latin music,

jazz with west Indian music,

jazz with gospel music,

jazz with hip-hop.

[Man singing rap]

[Crowd cheering]

Redman: But ultimately,
what matters is

the emotional power
of the music.

[Crowd cheering]

The important thing is
that jazz is moving,

expanding in many
different directions,

and that there are
original artists out here

who have something
original to say,

who are expressing their
original feelings

and original experiences
as human beings today.

And as long as that continues,
jazz will be fine.

[Conductor humming along]

Low, low, low!

Boy: Jazz is like...
You're a painter.

And you want to create
a certain image.

You throw out a color,

and I want to throw out
plenty of colors

so they could see
what kind of painter I am.

I want to illustrate what kind
of music--musician I am.

Conductor:
Ok, hold on.

Ahhh...

Girl: The harmonies--
it's like, they hit me,

and it's like...Wow!

Just--i want to do that!

Hold it out!

I want to learn how to get
from here to there,

and how did we get
from this type of music

to the kind of music
that's on the radio?

Wah!

Wah!

Everything grows out
of what's been done before,

so it's really interesting,
and, hopefully...

I'll take it my way
someday.

Go!

[Playing
saxophone solo]

You didn't do it
in there.

Wynton marsalis: The reason
the debate around jazz is

always heated
and strong is because

jazz music deals with
the soul of our nation.

And through this music,
we can see a lot

about what it means
to be American.

In our generation,
there was a belief
that jazz music was dead,

so there was
all the celebration
that went with that--

"ah, finally! No more jazz!"
Now, here we are.

We're still swinging,
and we ain't going nowhere.

There's plenty of us
out there swinging,

and we're going
to keep swinging.

[Playing Wild man blues]

[crowd cheering]

Giddins: I once asked a musician
where jazz was going,

and he said, "it'll go
wherever we take it.
We're the musicians."

And I don't know
of a really better answer.

One thing I do know
about the future of jazz is

that nobody has adequately
or accurately predicted it.

Nobody in the swing era
predicted bebop,

nobody in the bebop era
predicted the avant-garde,

and, certainly, nobody
of the avant-garde
predicted fusion.

Some young musician's going
to come along--

hopefully, it will be
someone really thrilling,
like Armstrong or Parker--

but somebody
of extraordinary gifts,

and he or she will play a music
that no one else has heard,

and that will be
the next movement.

[Whistle blows]

[Band playing
Oh, but on the third day]

narrator: The musical journey
that began in the dance halls

and saloons and street parades
of New Orleans

in the early years of
the 20th century continues...

And shows no sign
of slowing down.

Jazz remains
gloriously inclusive...

A proudly mongrel
American music,

still brand-new
every night...

The voices of the past
still its greatest teachers.

[Playing jazz]

[Ella Fitzgerald
singing scat]

[Jazz music playing]

[Applause]

Thanks so very much,
ladies and gentlemen.

All the kids in the band
want you to know that
we do love you madly.

[Laughter]

[Jazz music continuing]

[Applause and cheering]

[song ends]