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Re: A strange "rebuttal"...

I am not defending Burns. He can do that well enough on his own. As I have said, his films are not perfect, and not necessarily the films I would make. My point of contention is that many of the complaints registered here are not necessarily complaints of Burns' doing, yet the attempt is made to belittle what he has done, as though he has represented that he is doing something other than what he has done. You blame him for calling his films "documentaries". I suspect that the term is used generically, largely by the persons who market his films. Clapton is found in the "pop" section of most records stores. Think he would call his work "pop?" Yet you blame Burns for having the term used to describe his work.

You blame Burns for this concept that there has no relevant jazz after 1960. I say there has been. I do not know what Burns says. I know that there are musicians and critics, who are very learned, who would agree that there has not been original jazz after 1960, or maybe 1970. The point is that Burns did not create that viewpoint, yet you blame him for expressing it in his film (or at least, that is how you interpret it). Could it also have been that most people watching his films have been alive since 1960, and are probably more familiar with this period of history of jazz since that year. And that their knowledge prior to that date is less so, and Burns thought that focusing on the history prior to 1960 was more important. I suspect that you do not like Burns, for whatever reason, and ascribe ulterior motives to what may be sound decisions on his part. Marsalis has probably forgotten more Jazz than you and I will ever know, combined. While I may disagree with him, to dismiss his opinions out of hand is arrogant. Feel free to list your jazz credentials.

You spend most of your post writing about the Jazz film, then admit that the only one you watched closely was Baseball. As an ardent fan of the game and it's history, I must say I learned a lot. My precious Big Red Machine was given short shift, but, then, I already knew about them. What was the problem with Baseball? You would have done it differently? How?

You complained that Burns has somehow become known as the definition of the documetary genre. Whose fault is that? Burns? He makes the films, PBS Broadcasts them, then they are relesed on D.V.D. Exactly where in the process is Burns responsible for redefining the documetary genre? That he has become the definition of the genre is because most people see precious little documetaries. But that is not Burns' fault. Your critism of Burns has more to do with your opinions of him than your critism of his films.

But then again, you appear to be all about throwing barbs. What would you have done differently, in any of his films? What information in Jazz would you have removed in order to include the information which you believe to be so important? As a documentary filmmaker, I would think these questions should be relatively easy to answer.

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