A survey of the musical form's history and major talents.

This series explores the history of the major American musical form. We track its development in African American culture, its rise to prominence with its golden age of popularity spanning from the 1920's to the mid 1940s both in its original form and in Swing through its popular decline and the rise of vital new sub-genres into the present day. Along the way, we learn of the lives and work of major contributors to the form such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Charlie "Bird" Parker and many others who helped form Jazz into the vibrant musical form it is. We see how the music reflected the political and social issues of the African American community over the course of the form's history.—Kenneth Chisholm <[email protected]>

Ken Burns' Jazz is an overview of the distinctive musical genre. Jazz is America's music. Born out of a million American negotiations, between having and not having, between happy and sad, country and city, between black and white, and men and women, between the old Africa and the old Europe, that could only have happened in an entirely new world.