It’s Got That Swing . . .

Ken Burns’ “Jazz” documentary, with its foot-tapping historical overview of America’s music, has come and gone--at least for the moment. The highly promoted 19-hour documentary surely will turn up again during PBS pledge drives, and it’s already available on home video (10 tapes or DVDs). Music stores, too, are overrun with “Jazz” CDs: a boxed set, a “best of” album and 22 individual discs devoted to artists featured in the series.

America has had a brief but spectacular rush of sounds, information and commentary about jazz. And we know it’s had an impact when we hear someone in the grocery checkout line talking about Louis Armstrong.

But what are the more practical results for musicians and clubs in the Southern California jazz scene?

The verdict, so far, appears mixed.

Ruth Price, who runs the Jazz Bakery, one of L.A.’s principal jazz destinations for national acts, jokes that the most immediate effect of “Jazz” was that it kept people at home watching TV instead of going out to hear live music.

Price’s reaction, of course, reflects the fact that the documentary only recently completed its airing.

“It’s really too soon to tell in terms of the kind of turnouts we have here,” she says, “but I have the suspicion that it’s like preaching to the choir. The people who are really crazy about that series are the people who are already crazy about the whole period of jazz [that is emphasized in the documentary]. But I don’t quite know what it’s going to do for the players who are continuing the tradition. And that’s going to impact what I do here at the Bakery since I feel that presenting young people is a basic part of my mission.”

Many club owners tend to view the documentary wondering if it will enlarge the crowds at their venues.

Catalina Popescu, owner and chief talent booker for Catalina Bar & Grill, feels upbeat, reporting that she is hearing a significant buzz about the Burns series.

“All the customers who come in say they’ve watched it, and they all have comments,” she says. “Most say they’re annoyed because it didn’t pay attention to the players from the last few years. But I think it’s going to have a positive effect in the long run.”

“The good side of the show,” says Herbie Hancock, “is that, everywhere I go, the first question people ask me--even if they’re not jazz fans--is ‘What do you think of the Ken Burns series?’ And I can tell from their reactions that they’ve watched it, enjoyed it, and for some of the older people it seems to have served up some juices from their early years, when jazz was the popular music. I just hope that kind of reaction translates into a sustained interest in jazz from a live performance and a recording standpoint, too.”

But Hancock, the renowned jazz pianist and Grammy Award winner, doesn’t stop there.

“My other feeling is that it seems to suggest that the heroes are all in the past and they all happen to be dead. It also seemed odd that, when there are musicians alive from the ‘30s and ‘40s and ‘50s--and even beyond--who have stories to tell, that they weren’t [asked]. I mean, why are we listening to Wynton [Marsalis] talking about things that happened before he was born? Why would they ask Wynton about Miles [Davis] when Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter [who played with Davis] are still around?”

Pianist Chick Corea takes a somewhat more upbeat point of view, describing the series as “a huge effort, very well done, that helps the broader public have a look into the music we love.” (This, even though “Jazz” paid scant attention to Corea’s many accomplishments.)

Rick Clemente, proprietor of the Jazz Spot and its associated Los Feliz Restaurant, finds that at his club, “[e]verybody knows about it and everyone’s talking about it.” But, he says, there’s a big difference between assembling a documentary about jazz in the past and dealing with jazz in the present.

“I could say the same thing to Ken Burns that I often say to [KLON-FM (88.1) jazz disc jockey] Chuck Niles,” says Clemente. “I tell him he has it easy because he has all the recordings of all the guys who are dead. On our stage, not only do they have to be live, they have to be in L.A., and we have to be able to afford them.”

In fact Los Angeles has a thriving jazz scene. This weekend in particular happens to be a very busy one for jazz aficionados.

Singer Nnenna Freelon, for one, performs in a special Grammy Festival concert at the Jazz Bakery on Sunday night.

Freelon, who will be the only jazz artist performing on the Grammy show Wednesday, says the documentary has generated a positive response from her fans.

“We are visual people,” she says, “and the series was so well put together that it has raised people’s awareness. I think it will have a ‘trickle-down’ effect in different ways, including the allocation of funds, grants, bookings and so forth.

“In a personal sense,” she says, “the immediate impact has been in conversation, as people have even more regard for what I do. The series has put me in a cultural context, instead of being thought of as some poor, starving artist on the fringe.”

Among the younger players, trumpeter Nicholas Payton is cautiously optimistic about the impact of the Burns documentary. But he also notes, “I just hope it will heighten general awareness of the music that’s being played now and encourage people to go out and hear the current crop of musicians. And to buy new records as well as the older things, because jazz is still a living and breathing art form and still continuing to grow and develop.”

“Hopefully,” says Payton, who brings his Louis Armstrong tribute to UCLA’s Royce Hall tonight, “the documentary will encourage people to recognize that.”

Clayton Finds Flaws in Series Upon Scrutiny

John Clayton, bassist, co-leader of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and music director for jazz at the Hollywood Bowl, is one of the most influential members of the Southland’s jazz community. Viewing the documentary from his roles as musician, composer-arranger, bandleader and administrator, he offers a range of responses. His initial reaction was to feel hopeful about its eventual impact upon the jazz world.

“I guess I basically feel the way most jazz musicians do about the show,” says Clayton. “On the one hand, it’s done a great service for jazz because it’s become a buzzword now. People are talking about the music and even dropping names. That’s the general good news.”

But Clayton has critical thoughts, as well.

“If you take a magnifying glass and look at it,” he says, “you can see the flaws.”

Like many others--both observers and musicians--Clayton expresses concern about the omissions, especially in the case of the scant attention given to Los Angeles resident and jazz legend, bandleader and composer Benny Carter.

“I was outraged by that,” says Clayton. “When I asked Benny why he hadn’t been interviewed for the show, he said, ‘I was.’ And when I asked him why material from his interview hadn’t been included, he said, ‘I guess I didn’t say what they wanted to hear.’ ”

Clayton’s remarks about the minimal acknowledgment of Carter underscore the relatively small amount of attention overall that the documentary accords to Los Angeles and its immensely rich jazz history.

From the early appearances by Jelly Roll Morton in the ‘20s, through the glory days of Central Avenue, into the cool sounds of West Coast jazz in the ‘50s, through the edgy ‘60s and into the diverse blends of funk, fusion, blues, avant-garde and revisited mainstream that have characterized the music of the last few decades, Southern California has been a primal, if underappreciated, producer of world-class jazz.

But that’s not a perspective one receives from watching Burns’ “Jazz.”

“And,” Clayton says, “it fails to acknowledge the special relationships--as co-workers and as friends--that have historically existed between most jazz musicians, black and white, in Los Angeles.”

If, despite its flaws, Burns’ “Jazz” has a salutary impact upon the jazz world in general, in California it will give a boost to a general West Coast revival that began two or three years ago. During that time, the Los Angeles club scene has expanded via the arrival of venues such as Rocco’s (now temporarily closed but scheduled to reopen in a new location in the spring), the Jazz Spot, the Knitting Factory Hollywood and Charlie O’s.

Arts presenters such as UCLA, USC, Cal State Northridge, the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art and others have been joined by the Skirball Center, the Getty Museum, the Athenaeum (in San Diego) and others in the regular scheduling of jazz programming.

And, in addition to the annual Playboy Jazz Festival in June, the Los Angeles Philharmonic jazz initiative has for the third straight year scheduled eight major jazz events this summer at the Hollywood Bowl.

In Final Analysis, Optimism Prevails

So is it a thumbs up or a thumbs down in terms of the effect that Burns’ “Jazz” will have upon the music it explores in such detail?

“I’m one of those ‘Is the glass half empty or half full?’ guys,” says Clayton. “And I prefer to look at the documentary, when we talk about what it will do for the music, as half full.”

And that’s probably a pretty accurate description of where most of the jazz world is regarding Burns’ “Jazz.”

But the Jazz Spot’s Clemente summed it all up when he said, “I think if I’d been making the documentary I’d have said at the end of every episode, regardless of what era they were covering, that every one of those elements--Dixieland, bebop, swing, whatever--still has a living audience, fan base and supporters.

“Because all this music, every genre, is still around, still very much worth hearing. And that’s the real beauty of jazz.”

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Following the Beat

* A look at some of the jazz events this weekend in venues from Hollywood to Santa Barbara. Page 10