Ken Burns

The infectious music of the swing bands sets the mood for soldiers going off to fight in World War II. Gifted trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, in after-hours jam sessions with other young rebels, including the drummer Kenny Clarke and pianist Thelonious Monk, take jazz in startling new directions with their complex music--bebop. Their innovations, however, are largely unnoticed amidst the war effort. Armed Forces Radio...

Jazz becomes the official symbol of American democracy abroad. At home, the music splinters into different camps: white and black, cool and hot, East and West, traditional and modern. Television supplants radio, but offers fewer opportunities for jazz to be heard. Most big bands are forced to dismantle. The rhythm and blues phenomenon further erodes the audience for jazz. Charlie Parker dies of pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver at age 34; Dizzy...

This extraordinary final episode begins in the bittersweet aftermath of Lee's surrender and then goes on to narrate the horrendous events of five days later when, on April 14, Lincoln is assassinated. After chronicling Lincoln's poignant funeral, the series recounts the final days of the war, the capture of John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, and the fates of the series' major characters. The episode then considers the consequences and meaning...

As rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll erode jazz' audience still further, the music nonetheless enjoys a time of tremendous creativity. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins makes his mark on the scene, Duke Ellington reemerges as a star after a triumphant performance at the Newport Jazz Festival and Miles Davis makes several now-legendary albums. Young trumpeter Clifford Brown achieves great artistry, but his life is cut short in a car accident. Vocalist Sarah...

As the Great Depression deepens, jazz thrives. The saxophone emerges as an iconic instrument of the music; the episode introduces two of its masters, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Young migrates to Kansas City, where a vibrant music scene is prospering. Out of this ferment emerges pianist Count Basie, who forms a band that epitomizes the Kansas City sound. With the help of John Hammond, Basie takes his band to New York, where his remarkable rhythm...

Amid the hard times of the Depression, a new dance, the Lindy Hop, begins to catch on at the dance halls of New York. The reminiscences of two of Harlem's greatest dancers, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, help frame this episode. Louis Armstrong begins to sing on stage; though his career suffers from a string of bad luck, his trumpet playing and singing continue to astonish listeners. Duke Ellington's band begins to appear in Hollywood films, and...

Thomas Jefferson is by most accounts the most admired and greatest figure in American history. However, he was a man whose behavior in many ways contradicted his public declarations. He supported resistance and revolution in America and France, yet was not a charismatic politician or front-line soldier. His eloquence was immortalized in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that "All men are created equal." He disapproved of the slave trade,...

Jazz is born in the unique musical and social cauldron of New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century, emerging from several forms of music, including ragtime, marching bands, work songs, spirituals, European classical music, funeral parade music and, above all, the blues. Musicians who advance early jazz in New Orleans include Creole pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton, cornetist Buddy Bolden and clarinet prodigy Sidney Bechet. Composer W.C....

Louis Armstrong arrives in New York from Chicago where, during a brief stay with the Fletcher Henderson band, he amazes his fellow musicians and teaches the city to swing. A blues craze, spearheaded by Bessie Smith, takes the nation by storm. Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz artist, eventually plays for bandleader Paul Whiteman, whose blending of classical and jazz traditions comes to epitomize jazz for many Americans. This episode...

In the 1960s, jazz becomes divided into "schools" -- Dixieland, swing, bop, hard bop, cool, modal, free, avant-garde. The question of what is jazz and what isn't rages, dividing audiences, dividing musicians, dividing generations. For many, the real question is whether jazz, the most American of art forms, will survive at all. Rock 'n' roll groups dominate record sales and radio, and many jazz musicians, like Dexter Gordon, are forced to leave America...