Gumbo (Beginnings to 1917)

Nonfiction • TV-PG • Directed by: Ken Burns: Jazz • 89 minutes

Jazz begins in New Orleans, 19th century America's most cosmopolitan city, where the sound of marching bands, Italian opera, Caribbean rhythms, and minstrel shows fills the streets with a richly diverse musical culture. In the 1890s, African-American musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden and Sydney Bichet create a new music out of these ingredients. Soon after the start of the new century, people are calling it jazz.

Other films by Ken Burns: Jazz