Ken Burns Baseball on...

[slidekellyslide]

Outside of the few glaring errors that only baseball historians will notice I watched Burns baseball and thought it was great. Although I can watch Innings 1-4 over and over, I have little interest after that point. Every filmmaker has a point of view and that's what you're going to get. I don't think Burns has ever declared his documentary to be the authoritative history of the game. He gave his point of view, I'm not so sure that it was as important to him that we got an actual photo of Candy Cummings as it was to tell his story.

With that said...I like accuracy and I'd like to know who it was that told Burns it wasn't Cummings and when he told him.

[perezfan]

Like Ted Z, after a while, I just had to cease watching it as well. When I realized my level of annoyance was outweighing the enjoyment, I had to turn it off. The political agenda was far stronger than any baseball content.

Aside from the aforementioned "errors and omissions", the 1970s segment barely recognized (or even mentioned) the best team of the decade, and chose to focus on Bostonians' extreme disappointment, along with biased reactions from people like Mario Cuomo and the renowned baseball expert, Doris Kearns Goodwin.

I can appreciate the effort and don't begrudge those who loved it, but it wasn't my "cup of tea".

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Outside of the few glaring errors that only baseball historians will notice I watched Burns baseball and thought it was great. Although I can watch Innings 1-4 over and over, I have little interest after that point. Every filmmaker has a point of view and that's what you're going to get. I don't think Burns has ever declared his documentary to be the authoritative history of the game. He gave his point of view, I'm not so sure that it was as important to him that we got an actual photo of Candy Cummings as it was to tell his story.

With that said...I like accuracy and I'd like to know who it was that told Burns it wasn't Cummings and when he told him.

Agreed. I'd also like to know the context of the Landis letter where he said, "the answer remains no." Because, even if the owners were 15 out of 16 against integration during Chandler's era, that didn't stop Branch Rickey from going forward. And that had everything to do with Landis passing away and the person that Chandler was.

[barrysloate]

Keep in mind everyone has a favorite team or player, and likewise a favorite jazz musician, that may have been given short shrift in the Burns' documentaries. And certainly he never tried to be encyclopedic in the way he approached his subjects. He focused on what he and his team felt were most important, and gave those areas a great deal of attention. My jazz favorite musician is Miles Davis, and he spent a lot of time on his career, so I for one was satisfied with the product.

We all agree there were errors and facts left out of all the Burns documentaries, but I believe that no one has ever tackled those subjects on film as well as he did.

And did anybody see his series on National Parks? It was terrific, and since I knew very little about them, if he left something important out I never would have known it. I was able to enjoy it exactly as it was presented.

[tedzan]

Gerry Mulligan was the other great Jazz artist I thought Burns gave "short shrift" to. Thanks for mentionong him.

Mulligan, along with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, George
Shearing, and Jack Teagarden were my favorites at Birdland back in the late 1950's and the 1960's era.


TED Z

[barrysloate]

Mulligan is one of my favorites too...as well as Jack Teagarden.

[Brian-Chidester]

Yeah, Mulligan had so much to do with Miles Davis's solo career. After leaving Charlie Parker's band and playing with a wide variety of small combos in the 52nd Street clubs of NYC, Davis involved himself with Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan, the latter of whom was a composer and was working with a nine piece band to mix fluidly concierto with jazz. The Birth of the Cool band became Miles Davis's Nonet, and because Davis had the contract with Capitol, he got to put his name on the "Birth of the Cool" album. In truth, it was a collaboration with Mulligan, Lee Konitz and Gil Evans, all of whom worked to write and arrange most of the numbers recorded there.

Miles continued his relationship with Gil Evans, and Mulligan moved to the West Cost and worked with the likes of Chet Baker and Art Farmer, etc., but both Mulligan and Davis were known as musicians who utilized the eraser concept more than any others. They erased or wiped away all of the excess and created a post-bop, sleek, modernist sound that revolutionized jazz. Miles gets the lion's share of the credit, and he deserves it... his music is incredible. But anyone who recognizes the brilliance of West Coast Cool jazz, which Burns chose not to, would have to acknowledge Mulligan as its progenitor.

[barrysloate]

Good information Brian. Another interesting sidelight is the entire Birth of the Cool album, and the new direction jazz would head post-1950, was born in Gil Evans' studio apartment in Manhattan. That's where the musicians gathered to work on their new ideas.

[Brian-Chidester]

It's true. 52nd Street was falling apart by 1950-51, as a club district. They had to have someplace to go. And besides, speakeasies were almost always in warehouses and apartments, no matter how good the club scene was.

That's the crazy thing about jazz. You can look to the recording sessions and say, "The albums where this guy or that guy played live in a club is even better," but then think about the fact that NO ONE captured these giants in apartments or other speakeasies.

We will always be left to wonder what Buddy Bolden sounded like. Sigh...

[bmarlowe1]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

Because, even if the owners were 15 out of 16 against integration during Chandler's era, that didn't stop Branch Rickey from going forward. And that had everything to do with Landis passing away and the person that Chandler was.

"....everything to do" - How do you know that? How do you know that it was primarily Landis alone that stopped Rickey? You've said nothing to support that.

History is rarely that simple. Landis's parents and grandparents were abolitionists, and his brothers actively opposed Klan candidates for congress. None of that makes him a hero - he wasn't. Nor was he the primary cause of the problem.

[Brian-Chidester]

One can only go by the letters and statements made by Happy Chandler with regards to soldiers fighting in the war, and that those good enough to fight should be good enough to play in MLB. Also the fact that Robinson broke in during the Chandler era.

As for Landis, enough attempts were made to integrate baseball during his era to affirm that either he flat out rejected their entry, or else he was passive and upheld the owners' sentiment.

But I know history is never that simple. If it could be proven beyond a doubt that he was instrumental in upholding segregation in baseball, then he would (IMHO) be a major blot on the Hall of Fame's reputation.

[bmarlowe1]

[quote=Brian-Chidester;783394]
As for Landis, enough attempts were made to integrate baseball during his era to affirm that either he flat out rejected their entry, or else he was passive and upheld the owners' sentiment.quote]

I agree with that statement as it leaves the question open.

[bmarlowe1]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

....
With that said...I like accuracy and I'd like to know who it was that told Burns it wasn't Cummings and when he told him.

Dan, the best public info on this is in a Net54 thread. go to:
http://tinyurl.com/ybe96ry

scroll down to #14. There is a bit more to this, but confidentially prevents me from saying more about it.

BTW - I have since found another good image of Cummings, but that is way O/T.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by bmarlowe1

Dan, the best public info on this is in a Net54 thread. go to:
http://tinyurl.com/ybe96ry

scroll down to #14. There is a bit more to this, but confidentially prevents me from saying more about it.

BTW - I have since found another good image of Cummings, but that is way O/T.

Yep, my problem is that Burns seems to take a beating every time someone brings this issue up, but Corey can't even remember if he told Burns or the producer. And as far as confidential sources go, as long as they remain confidential I remain skeptical about when and if they notified Burns. What's the point in remaining confidential about such a triviality??

There seems to be such a dislike for Burns's Baseball documentary among SABR types, but as far as I can tell there has never been an undertaking to showcase the history of the game in such a grand way. Mistakes were made, but none so egregious as to ruin a really great documentary.

Hell, I didn't even know until this thread that some folks had found enough of a political bent in it as to turn them off. I can understand that they may not like Doris Kearns-Goodwin, or Mario Cuomo, but these people were all talking about the game as it related to them or to America...they weren't discussing Health Care or National Defense.

[bmarlowe1]

Dan: There seems to be such a dislike for Burns's Baseball documentary among SABR types...

That is true - it's because we tend to be overly obsessive as to details (kind of anal-retentive I guess)

Dan: "but as far as I can tell there has never been an undertaking to showcase the history of the game in such a grand way. Mistakes were made, but none so egregious as to ruin a really great documentary."

I agree. What I disagreed with was Brian's citing of Burns as providing a simple conclusive answer to the cause of the continuation of MLB segregation thru the 1940's. I am not even sure if Burns intended that.

Dan: "And as far as confidential sources go, as long as they remain confidential I remain skeptical about when and if they notified Burns."

That's a fair statement, but the confidentiallity is not my choice. All I can say is that more than one very knowlegable consultant to Burns' project advised against using the photo. The person who wanted it used (also a consultant) was the owner of the photo and either had recently sold it or would relatively soon sell it (I don't recall the exact date of the sale). It was a really bad choice made from competing consultants, one of whom clearly had a $ interest in the photo being used as Cummings.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by bmarlowe1

That's a fair statement, but the confidentiallity is not my choice. All I can say is that more than one very knowlegable consultant to Burns' project advised against using the photo. The person who wanted it used (also a consultant) was the owner of the photo and either had recently sold it or would relatively soon sell it (I don't recall the exact date of the sale). It was a really bad choice made from competing consultants, one of whom clearly had a $ interest in the photo being used as Cummings.

Clearly then the fault lies with competing consultants. Highly doubtful Burns had any interest in misrepresenting a photo he had no investment in.

[bmarlowe1]

[quote=slidekellyslide;783419]Clearly then the fault lies with competing consultants.../quote]

On that we'll have to agree to disagree - a historian will always be confronted with experts who differ (that is certainly the case with how much continuing segregation was the fault of Landis - experts do disagree).

In this case Burns or his producer made a bad choice - the fact that experts disagree should mean you don't portray the photo as positively identified - you find another photo that everyone agrees on or you just skip it. I have advised some authors to do just that.

[slidekellyslide]

Eh...filmmaker or historian? Burns went with a photo that had already appeared in a SABR publication identified as Cummings. We still have NO proof that Burns was even aware of the controversy surrounding the photo when he made the film.