Here is a brief description of the first episode from a PBS press notice. "Episode 1: "Gumbo" Beginnings to 1917
January 8, 2001, 9:00 P.M. (check local listings)
JAZZ begins in New Orleans, nineteenth century America's most cosmopolitan city, where the sound of marching bands, Italian opera, Caribbean rhythms, and minstrel shows fills the streets with a richly diverse musical culture.
Here, in the 1890s, African-American musicians create a new music out of these ingredients by mixing in ragtime syncopations and the soulful feeling of the blues. Soon after the start of the new century, people are calling it jazz.
Tonight, meet the pioneers of this revolutionary art form: the half-mad cornetist Buddy Bolden, who may have been the first man to play jazz; pianist Jelly Roll Morton, who claimed to have invented jazz but really was the first to write the new music down; Sidney Bechet, a clarinet prodigy whose fiery sound matched his explosive personality; and Freddie Keppard, a trumpet virtuoso who turned down a chance to win national fame for fear that others would steal the secrets of his art.
The early jazz players travel the country in the years before World War I, but few people have a chance to hear this new music until 1917, when a group of white musicians from New Orleans arrives in New York to make the first jazz recording. They call themselves the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and within weeks their record becomes an unexpected smash hit. Americans are suddenly jazz crazy, and the Jazz Age is about to begin."
For more information on JAZZ, please see http://www.pbs.org/jazz/
Passing of Ray Walston: Hollywood lost another noted actor when Ray Walston passed away earlier this week. The actor, probably best known for his portrayal of Uncle Martin, the Martian on the CBS comedy MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, died of at the age of 86.
Television fans will also know him for his work on PICKET FENCES (CBS, 1992 to 1996), for his semi-recurring role on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and for his starring role in the short-lived sitcom FAST TIMES (CBS, 1986). The sitcom was based on the successful film Walston co-starred in called FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH.
Walston was a respected actor who won a Tony Award for his work in DAMN YANKEES and two Best Supporting Actor Emmys for his role in PICKET FENCES. For more on the career of Ray Walston please see http://www.sitcomsonline.com/myfavoritem...
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