T.....I read the article and it makes a lot of points....also misses a few. If you view this as the dfinitive history of jazz, its worthless. If you view it as a primer, its fine.

I'm already agreed to the Marsalis points....too much Wynton. But in that first episode, Burns clearly discussed the multi-cultural place that New Orleans was and that "behind the walls of the city" cultures mixed, mingled and shared their roots. Again, he didn't have any details and only touched on the Spanish influence, although a bit more on Creole, but jazz in its first forms came predominantly from the black culture and as Burns DID point out, the Creoles did not consider themselves black, but of European heritage and the blacks in New Orleans were not of the African slave root as much as from the the islands (at least a generation or so deep).

Spaw