Jazz (TV Mini Series)

Gumbo: Beginnings to 1917 (2001)

Keith David: Narrator

Quotes 

• Narrator : Jazz is America's music. Born out of a million American negotiations; between having and not having; between happy and sad; country and city; between black and white; and men and women; between the old Africa and the old Europe, that could only have happened in an entirely new world.

• Narrator : Jazz is an improvisational art, making itself up as it goes along, just like the country that gave it birth. It rewards individual expression but demands selfless collaboration. It is forever changing but nearly always rooted in the blues. It has a rich tradition and its own rules, but it is brand new every night.

• Narrator : [quoting Edward Baxter Perry]  Ragtime is syncopation gone mad. Its victims, in my opinion, can be treated successfully only like the dog with rabies, with a dose of lead. Whether it is simply a passing phase of our decadent art culture or an infectious disease which has come to stay, like leprosy, time alone can tell. It is an evil music that has crept into the homes and hearts of our American people regardless of race, and must be wiped out as other bad and dangerous epidemics have been exterminated.

• Narrator : Jazz has enjoyed huge popularity and survived hard times, but it has always reflected Americans, all Americans, at their best.

• Narrator : [quoting Bruce Boyd Raeburn]  Giving the musicians the freedom and the power to have their own voice was really very innovative when jazz first emerged in New Orleans, because the way things were usually done, a composer would tell the musician what to do.

• Narrator : [quoting James Lincoln Collier]  It was a new century, and there were high hopes, and young people really wanted that kind of freedom to create a culture of their own. This was really the first time in American history that that had happened.