Series · 2007 · 1 Season
A Journey Through American Music
Presented by Morgan Freeman from his Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale Mississippi. What was the Blues music that came out of the Delta and how did it develop into Jazz and Soul? Using interviews with musicians and musicologists and with unique access to the archive of the Montreux Jazz Festival we tell this story of American music. Essential viewing for Jazz fan and historian alike.
- Rating
- 0.0 / 10
- Status
- Returning Series
Episodes
Episode 1
Blues Beginnings
Morgan Freeman charts the history and influence of American music from rhythm and blues to rap through interviews, archive footage and live performances.
Episode 2
Travelling Blues
Morgan Freeman examines the British blues boom of the 1960s, when bands including Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones helped bring the genre to a white audience.
Episode 3
Sounds Of Jazz
Morgan Freeman tells the story of the first few decades of jazz, from its birthplace in New Orleans and the big-band eras to bebop and other post-war developments.
Episode 4
Free Jazz To Future Jazz
Morgan Freeman continues charting the history of jazz, relating how after the bebop revolution of the 1940s, free jazz was formulated by Ornette Coleman in the late 1950s.
Episode 5
Soul Stirrings
Morgan Freeman traces the ancestry of soul music, which had its roots in the 1950s when gospel and R'n'B came together through the work of Ray Charles.
Episode 6
Heart Of Soul
Morgan Freeman recalls the heydays of the Motown and Stax record labels in the 1960s and 70s, and explores the work of neo-soul singers such as Angie Stone.
