PBS to Trumpet Ken Burns’ ‘Jazz’ Series

Hoping to spur viewers to commit to watching a daunting 19 hours of Ken Burns’ January documentary “Jazz,” the powers behind the new PBS show have put together a marketing effort unusual for public television.

John Middlebrook, a vice president at General Motors, the program’s sole corporate underwriter, said GM hopes the marketing push, which includes both corporate and charitable tie-ins, “will become a model for other public broadcasting programs.”

Among other promotions, the National Basketball Assn. this fall will put on a special halftime show on “Jazz” in its arenas and will make its players available for “Jazz” publicity events.

Throughout January, Starbucks coffeehouses will promote the 10-part program (individual segments will vary in length) with banners, viewer guides and jazz music in 3,000 outlets. Starbucks also will sell a companion CD, one of many CDs pegged to the program that are to be released. A portion of the proceeds from those sales will go to the United Negro College Fund.

The fund will be the beneficiary of events tied to the show, and GM will pay for special “Jazz” screenings at fund-member schools. As with other GM-sponsored Burns’ documentaries, GM will pay for curriculum materials, including working with the Music Educators National Conference to reach middle-school music teachers.

There are more traditional tie-ins: Knopf is publishing a companion book in November. Sony Music’s Columbia/Legacy Recordings and the Verve Music Group have put aside their rivalries to produce CDs, from a single overview of the history of jazz to a five-CD boxed set and 22 individual artist compilations. All will be released in November under the title “Ken Burns’s ‘Jazz.’ ”