Episode Three: Our Language
As
the stock market continues to soar,
jazz is everywhere in America, and
now, for the first time, soloists
and singers take center stage, transforming
the music with their distinctive voices
and the unique stories they have to
tell. Tonight we meet Bessie Smith,
Empress of the Blues, whose songs
ease the pains of life for millions
of black Americans and help black
entrepreneurs create a new recording
industry around the blues; Bix Beiderbecke,
the first great white jazz star, who
is inspired by Louis Armstrong to
dedicate his life to the music and,
in turn, inspires others with solos
of unparalleled lyric grace, only
to destroy himself with alcohol at
age 28; and two brilliant sons of
Jewish immigrants, Benny Goodman and
Artie Shaw, for whom jazz offers an
escape from the ghetto and a chance
to achieve their dreams. In New York,
we follow Duke Ellington uptown to
Harlem's most celebrated nightspot,
the gangster-owned, whites-only Cotton
Club, where he continues blending
the individual voices of his band
members to create harmonies no one
has imagined before, then gets the
break of a lifetime when radio carries
his music into homes across the country,
bringing him national fame. And in
Chicago, where he has returned to
find himself billed as "The World's
Greatest Trumpet Player," we listen
as Louis Armstrong combines the soloist's
and vocalist's arts to create scat
singing, then watch as he charts the
future of jazz in a series of small-group
recordings that culminates in his
masterpiece, "West End Blues." Called
"the most perfect three minutes of
music" ever created, Armstrong's astonishing
performance lifts jazz to the level
of high art, where his genius stands
alone. ©2001
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