Annotations for Subject: Latin Jazz

Back in the late 1930s, the great Jerry Roll Morton said, quote, "If you can't manage to put pages in Spanish in your tunes, you'll never get the right seasoning for jazz." But in Burns' Jazz, there is no mention of historic Latin Jazz figures such as saxophonist and bandleader Mario Bauza, timbalero Tito Puente, or arranger and composer Arturo Chico O'Farrill. And when he looks to the future, Burns does not see fit to mention young artists such as Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez or Puerto Rican saxophonist David Sanchez.

These are not small-time Latin Jazz players working obscurely in some stylistic ghetto, but superior musicians who happen to be Latinos, and who, for the past decade, have been developing a pan-Latin view of Jazz that might very well be the music's future. Early on in Jazz, trumpetist Wynton Marsalis, who was also a crucial advisor to the series, speaks about how, quote, "the real power of jazz is that a group of people can come together and negotiate their agendas with each other." That in Jazz is a prime example of such negotiation. Here is a music drawn from several cultures and traditions, played by groups made up of musicians with often profoundly different backgrounds, and more. Here is a music with all deep roots, embracing the new world. A music rich with memories, but looking for a future unburdened by history. A music street-wise and brash, but also touchingly familiar with the past. Here is a music with all deep roots, embracing the new world. It is a soundtrack for a nation of immigrants. But you won't hear any of it in Jazz, and that's too bad. By perpetuating the notion of a United States and an American culture drawn only from two races, Jazz doesn't just fail Latinos or Latin music fans. It fails us all.