Jazz Icons 3

Jazz is America's most durable cultural export of all time, hands down. I am admittedly biased, having grown up in the '60s when jazz was a vital art form, stretching boundaries and ripping envelopes clear in half. Names like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman meant more to me than Mick Jagger and John Lennon, though I later learned to respect pop music as well as jazz. And now, like a beautiful deja vu, comes the latest installment of the "Jazz Icons" DVD collection from Naxos and Reelin' in the Years Prods. It is a stunner.

The crisply shot black and white footage looks as good as it sounds, gleaned as it is from live performances in clubs and festival settings. Sonny Rollins, who famously refuses to listen to or watch any of his old performances (knowing he'd hear something he'd want to change, even all these years later!) is caught in youthful mid-1960s form, filmed in Denmark and blowing lyrically and muscularly all at once.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk has to be seen to be believed, playing three reed instruments at once, then switching to flute and blowing his breathy and funky lines at warp speed and maximum-swing. What a force of nature and incredible showman. Seeing him is the bonus -- that's what makes this collection so valuable. My favorite pianist, the cerebral and intense Bill Evans, was filmed in Denmark in European venues in the mid-60s and Nina Simone, the imperious and unpredictable diva, is as beautiful as she is self-assured. Oscar Peterson, Lionel Hampton and Cannonball Adderley round out the package, which ought to be Purchase One on your Xmas list for any of your jazz-loving significant others. Make your kids watch it!

The only sad thing is that the culture that ignored these nonpareil artists when they were living now champions faces and bodies instead of brains and soul. These jazz legends were artists, not celebrities, and never the twain shall meet. But they do look as good as they sound -- check out the previews Naxos has put up at Youtube. You will be unable to resist buying the whole caboodle. Blame me.