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!