Ken Burns American... Episodes on PBS

From Burns' 2001 series “Jazz”: “Our Language” follows Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong between 1924 and '28, and profiles other notable jazzmen and women associated with the period, including Bix Beiderbecke, Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and clarinet rivals Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw (who's interviewed). Ellington was honing his sexy “jungle music” at Harlem's Cotton Club, while Armstrong was making his groundbreaking recordings with studio groups known as “Hot Fives and Sevens.” “For the first time,” says critic Gary Giddens, “we knew that jazz was an art.”