January 26, 2001

Don't Ignore Modern Jazz

To the Editor:

In "Ken Burns's 'Jazz': Beautiful Music, but Missing a Beat" (The Review, December 15), Krin Gabbard touches on one of the weaknesses of the PBS documentary: a virtual denial of jazz after 1960. While this negligence on the part of Burns is in obvious deference to Wynton Marsalis and his status as the self-appointed jazz scholar and jazz-fusion basher, it speaks to a larger issue about jazz and multiculturalism. Jazz, while originally and primarily the music of black