Promotional Ideas Are Brewing for Burns’ ‘Jazz’

What will surely be the most impressive jazz juggernaut in promotional history kicked off Wednesday at a press conference in New York City. The subject of all the attention is Ken Burns’ huge new documentary, “Jazz,” a 10-episode, 19-hour examination of jazz.

Although the documentary itself won’t start airing on PBS until Jan. 8, the promotion is already underway in a campaign that obviously is going to last longer than the run for the presidency.

It makes sense that Starbucks is involved; jazz and coffee shops have had a long, compatible association. A tie-in with the National Basketball Assn. is a bit more unexpected, although the Thelonious Monk Institute has worked with the league and, as both Burns and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have pointed out, there are marked similarities between the manner in which jazz quintets and basketball teams go about their business.

“Bringing in the NBA,” says Burns, “was perfect. Because the game of basketball--and baseball, for that matter--represents this sort of genius of improvisation. Which is a prime element I’ve tried to represent in the ‘Jazz’ series, and in other films, as this uniquely American thing. We are in pursuit of happiness, as our creed says, and I think that sets in motion a great deal of improvisatory gestures. And who better represents them than jazz and basketball?”

Toward that end, in December every game in every NBA city will feature a live jazz ensemble at halftime. And selected film clips from the documentary will be presented via big-screen projections.

The campaign was planned, says Dan Klores, whose company has worked with the film’s primary corporate sponsor, General Motors, to promote the documentary “the same way we would do a political campaign. That means making decisions about target audiences--who do we focus on?--and finding ways to link together all the different elements.”

In this case, in addition to the more visible associations with Starbucks, the NBA and General Motors, Klores has reached out to link up with the United Negro College Fund, elder communities and veterans organizations, providing special video versions of the documentary for their individual use and/or sale.

But the most direct, jazz-associated aspect of the promotion will be a remarkable five-CD boxed set of music--most of it heard in the documentary--that was produced in partnership by Columbia Legacy and Verve. And probably only someone with Burns’ visibility could have brought together two companies that obviously are in competition with one another on a day-to-day basis.

“To me,” says Burns, “this is the most emblematic part of this whole promotional package. Here you have two large competitors, banding together, checking their egos at the door, as Ron Goldstein of Verve says, and really struggling to get along, and use the momentum of their agreement to get other companies to help out by making their material available. And that can only be good for the music.

“So instead of selling just within the jazz community, there’s now this opportunity to broaden it and make a package available that says, ‘Hey, let’s share this music.’ After all, there was a time when jazz was the central part of our popular music.”

11 Individual CDs

to Showcase Artists

In addition to the five-CD “Jazz” package from Columbia Legacy and Verve, each company will release 11 individual CDs, featuring the work of an artist showcased in the documentary. The 11 Verve albums feature Count Basie, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan and Lester Young. The 11 Columbia Legacy albums feature Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Herbie Hancock, Fletcher Henderson, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman.

But the related promotional recording that will probably receive the most widespread circulation is a single “Best of” CD with 20 selections handpicked by Burns, with his liner notes and carefully chosen packaging.

“It wasn’t easy to do,” he says. “I probably went through 50 or 60 different versions before I finally settled on what we have. But I wanted to have something that would properly represent the film, the history that it tells and the 498 musical selections that are heard within it.

“I’ve always been someone who’s felt, however correctly, a kind of communion with a large general audience that’s intelligent but uninformed. Which certainly describes my understanding of jazz when I first started this project. And I wanted to make a single CD for those persons who say, ‘Oh, I’m not really interested in jazz,’ so that I could respond, ‘OK. I made this film for you. Listen.’ ”

Inseparable from the fact that the “Jazz” documentary promotional campaign is the product of large and powerful entities--General Motors, after all, is the largest corporation in the world--is the happy fact that the results of all these efforts will undoubtedly enhance and elevate the image of jazz far beyond the music’s most devoted fans. And, whatever differences one may have with how Burns made the documentary and what he chose to include and exclude, there’s no question that the long lead-in campaign, the various promotional efforts (especially the various recordings) and the 10-week airing of the film (with many repeats) will have a felicitous effect upon the music.

“There’s always an evangelical dimension to these projects,” says Burns, “where you get involved and you’re very excited. But, when you think about the Civil War documentary, well, the Civil War is gone and done, and, sure, it’s very flattering to find out that battlefield attendance after the series is up.

“But here you have this wonderful music--jazz--which is so essential to who we are, and what we are, as a people and as a nation. Yet somehow, the larger public has been separated from it for decades. So what it really comes down to, for me, is that there’s something very exciting about the thought that we can encourage little old ladies in Dubuque to hear this music and tap their toes. After all, jazz isn’t an esoteric thing. It’s for everybody.”

“Jazz” airs on PBS in January in the following sequence:

Jan. 8: “Gumbo” (beginnings to 1917)

Jan. 9: “The Gift” (1917-1924)

Jan. 10: “Our Language” (1924-1928)

Jan. 15: “The True Welcome” (1929-1935)

Jan. 17: “Swing: Pure Pleasure” (1935-1937)

Jan. 22: “Swing: The Velocity of Celebration” (1937-1939)

Jan. 23: “Dedicated to Chaos” (1940-1945)

Jan. 24: “Risk” (1945-1955)

Jan. 29: “The Adventure” (1956-1960)

Jan. 31: “A Masterpiece by Midnight” (1961-the present)