TV REVIEW : ‘Griot’ Hurt by Choppy Production

Enlisting the talents of choreographer Garth Fagan, composer Wynton Marsalis and sculptor Martin Puryear, “Griot New York” arrived in 1991 as an instant classic: an inspired abstraction of contemporary life defined through modern dance and jazz, two of America’s greatest 20th-Century gifts to the world.

The eight-part work reached Los Angeles two years later (courtesy of UCLA) and tonight arrives in a drastically cut version on the PBS “Great Performances” series. No, not cut in length : Every note of Marsalis’ varied yet always propulsive and atmospheric score remains intact.

The choreography, however, is often shot and edited to leave only scattered fragments of what Fagan created. Indeed, in many sections of the 90-minute telecast, more of “Griot New York” has been cropped out of the picture than is shown on screen.

Clearly, director Matthew Diamond desperately wanted to make a contribution to this project, but simulating a home-video shoot in “The Disenfranchised” section by the use of a deliberately unsteady hand-held camera and wildly disorienting zooms only destroys the moment-by-moment coherence of the choreography.

Occasionally, Diamond relents, allowing (for instance) Norwood Pennewell and Valentina Alexander to dance the lyric “Spring Yaounde” duet unmolested. But eventually, inevitably, he’s back to generating a cheap video fizz through lightning glimpses of individual dancers intercut with close-ups of the Marsalis Septet playing on the sidelines.

Obviously, Diamond wouldn’t dare record Marsalis’ music this way: amplifying the sound of one instrument and leaving all the others unheard, then arbitrarily shifting his focus. Why is fine dancing any more suitable for dismemberment?

* Matthew Diamond’s version of “Griot New York” airs at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28 and at 9 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24.