ALL THAT JAZZ.

• Author: ROTHENBERG, ROBERT S.
• Position: Review

No one has ever accused documentarian Ken Burns of being modest in his ambition. His television series on the Civil War and baseball were sweeping and exhaustive, so there was no reason to expect that what he indicated would be the final installment in his trilogy on American life would be any less so.

Jazz (Warner Home Video, 19 hours, $199.99) takes on the most American of music genres, beginning in 1917 and finishing up 10 DVD discs later with jazz's resurgence today. The immense scope of such a project becomes apparent as one works through the series. With so many artists to be considered, some invariably get short shrift. Since the choice of which of them to spotlight is so subjective, the selection was bound to cause controversy. The final result is a disproportionate concentration on the musicians Burns regards as most influential--Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and, especially, the pair he salutes as the true "geniuses" of the field, Louis Armstrong and Duke EIlington.

It is easy to quibble that your favorites have been afforded too little screen time, compounded by the fact that the majority of the numbers...