It doesn't have as much time to work with as Ken Burns' eighteen-hour Jazz canvas, but Say It Loud: Black Music in America, a documentary co-produced by the Quincy Jones Media Group along with VH1 and Rhino Entertainment, will turn its attention to the larger history of black music in America.

Jones says the project is the result of the past twenty-five years, in which he has studied the history of African-American music and it's roots. "It's my life you know," he says. "I guess this began about the same time Alex Haley began Roots. I didn't know what he was trying to do at that time, when I first met him. But we became friends, because I was on a parallel path with music."

Jones claims that the international reach of the music was among his inspirations in spearheading the project. "After you've been playing this long, all over the world, you just ask, 'What is it really all about? What really happened is that slavery produced such a powerful sound that had been quieted. When the ships hit Virginia, the protestants, they shut it down. They said, 'Fuck that, man, communicational drums, family let's tear it apart.' And thank God for New Orleans where you had Catholics, French and Spanish and also mulattos that came from conservatories, they met with the Africans and played instruments Africans had never seen before like cornets, and trombones and clarinets. It's a saga, man."

But Jones is well aware of the difficulty in bringing so much music into such a small amount of time. "It's an impossible task in a way. Ken Burns had what, eighteen hours? We got five [laughs]. And we got all the black music, jazz too. It's like putting a watermelon in the Coke bottle. You've got to make some really serious choices about how it's contained in that space. But in my mind it's an ongoing process that's going to continue through lots of things because it's too big, it's too strong to contain."

The saga will cover the roots of the African-American music experience and the musical tributaries that grew from the sounds of Africa. "I go all over the world and there's a lot of choices out there," Jones says. "But to have this music become the Esperanto of the world is pretty amazing. It's a big bag to grab out of even though it's still a baby culture. As old as that feels with the Delta and everything else it's still a baby culture when you compare it to Europe and such. But, it's strong though. It's gumbo."

According to Jones, shooting will begin in early March, and will include interviews, archival footage and contemporary clips of some of American music's hallowed venues. The film is expected to be shot in five-parts with a tentative airing this fall. Rhino Records confirmed that a soundtrack would accompany the film, but had no specifics on the content.

ANDREW DANSBY
(February 13, 2001)