The specific points on what should be there and what should not be there aside, considering that more money has been spent on this epic than any other documentary of Jazz, it just is not anywhere near as good as it ought to be--The excuse that it is just intended to be a "primer", and you can't expect it to cover everything, doesn't wash with me at all--there are of primers on Jazz, and a number of documentaries, which are shown from time to time (Howard University's WHUT makes a point of airing whatever they can relating to jazz, and most all of it is better edited and written than this opus) documentary material, the thing is that when a piece is well written, it is possible to say a lot more than when it is slopped together--

Burns is not really a very good film maker, insofar as he tells his story strictly in his narration, and the visuals generally just give you something to look at while the narrator reads--even worse, the music, which should be the subject of the film, and actually can speak for itself, is just background music--

I will grant that it is worth watching, but the quality is on a level with the more mediocre of the A&E biographies, and not up there with "The American Experience"--