Watch Ken Burns say “jazz” so many times that the word loses all meaning

For Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel, jazz is merely “a series of mistakes without the ‘oops.’” For prolific PBS documentarian Ken Burns, however, jazz is a vital and truly American art form worthy of serious study and contemplation. Burns conceived his earnest, well-meaning 2001 series Jazz as the culmination of a trilogy that began with The Civil War in 1990 and continued with Baseball in 1994. He talked about these topics and more in an interview with the Archive Of American Television back in 2010, and in so doing, he happened to repeat the word “jazz” many, many times. Musician Bill Baird used this linguistic anomaly as the basis for a bizarre and disorienting YouTube video entitled “Ken Burns Says ‘Jazz’ 3 Billion Times (Actually 2.97 bn) In Under 3.5 Minutes.” Quite simply, Baird has isolated the moments from Burns’ archival interview in which he says the word “jazz” and strings them together and layers them on top of one another until they create an impenetrable wall of pure, Burnsian nonsense.