Because of Ken Burns they retired the wrong number for Jackie Robinson in
Montreal. His baseball series made more errors than the '62 Mets. Even
casual fans spotted inaccuracies in each of the series' nine parts.
Sportscaster Keith Oberman kept careful track and reported in detail. It
was amazing just how much Burns got wrong.

This year jazz enthusiasts were enraged  by Burns's extremely flawed "Jazz"
series, which may have been better titled "When you can get Winton Marsalis
to discuss Louis Armstrong why bother talking to his band?"  For more on
this a note I received from my friend, jazz producer Tom Duffy is pasted
below.

I dare say many Twain devotees and scholars will find and discuss problems
with Burns' Twain special. This will happen regardless of any semantic
blanket amnesty that is proposed. Burns has the budget and the wherewithal
to get it right. If he fails to do so, he's fair game. If this series is
inaccurate, the inaccuracies will become "fact" unless they are refuted.

And forgive me for not fawning over Twain being co-opted by a White House
that has declared all out war on our civil liberties. Somehow I doubt he'd
have been a large supporter of Missouri's John Ashcroft, a man the Show Me
State deemed less worthy of office than his dead opponent in the last
election. A man who favors of integration -- of church and state.

Usually I remain silent in this forum but it's Sam's birthday and I can't
give a free pass to inaccurate pop culturists or cynical pols looking to
benefit from affiliation with Twain's distorted, Disneytraumatized legend.

Happy Birthday, Mark Twain, without your inspiration I'd probably always
fear to speak up.

Barry Crimmins


Note from Tom Duffy to Barry Crimmins concerning Burns "Jazz" series.
Reprinted with permission.

Well, it's over and none to soon as I was getting closer to kicking in my
television screen ... Perhaps, it lies in the editing room ... One thought
here is if Mr. Burns cut out two, maybe three hours of Wynton Marsalis, he
then would have time to mention, at least once, legends like Betty Carter,
Chet Baker, Pharoah Sanders, Weather Report ( a Beamonesque-jump from
Bitches Brew into fusion and the 80's without a mention of this seminal
group ) Gene Ammons, Pat Metheny. Eddie Jefferson, Gerald Wilson, Shirley
Scott, Richard "Groove" Holmes, George Shearing, J.J. Johnson, Keith
Jarrett, Stephane Grappelli & Django Rheinhart, McCoy Tyner, June Christy,
the entire Central Avenue Era, Kenny Clarke, Wardell Gray, among scores of
others ( including the brother pairings of the Adderley's, the Jones's (
three of them ), the Barron's... The short-lived group SuperSax, dedicated
to the music of Charlie Parker ... The World Saxophone Quartet ... The John
Coltrane Memorial Concert, who, in 2001, heads into year 24 ...

Also, spanning two programs in which Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers were
discussed and featured, the omission of one of the top tenor players in the
business today ( pick #1, #2 or #3 ) - Mr. Billy Pierce - was outrageous (
or perhaps, my history is fuzzy - did Mr. Marsalis, with all that Columbia
Records budget - as well as the rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter

and Tony Williams on that amazing-selling first album - single-handedly
resurrect Jazz in 1980? ) ...

Were all the contemporaries of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, as well as
those still around of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington unavailable or
out-of-town for the nearly six-years it took to make this film that they
couldn't have been used to offer insight and commentary on these legends?

All I can say is wait a few years and watch for all the Mark Twain scholars
bouncing off the walls  ...

BeBop Lives!