Of course, one can quarrel with "Jazz's" exclusion of the contemporary scene, and quibble with the figures omitted. I myself would like to have seen a lot more of Bill Evans and Sarah Vaughan, as well as acknowledgment of the impact of fusion masters like John McLaughlin or Pat Metheny. But most of this kind of complaining strikes me as nitpicking, an excuse for partisans to beat their breasts -- or to bash Wynton Marsalis, whose icy, free-jazz-hating hand they see behind every false note in "Jazz."

Besides, let's get real. Any mainstream TV program beamed into millions of American homes that devotes even a few minutes to celebrating Miles' second quintet, which made some of the greatest art of the 20th century and which until this show was broadcast hardly any Americans had ever heard of, deserves a lot better than sectarian whining.

In the end, what you take away from "Jazz" is not who is in and who is out, but the epic sweep of the music's history. And the stories:

The inscrutable triumph and tragedy of Charlie Parker, terrifyingly summed up in an unforgettable scene in which his wife Chan recalls the four telegrams he sent her after learning their young child had died -- each more incoherent than the last. (When the telegram reading simply "Chan/ Help" was shown on the screen, it hit like an electric shock.)

Dave Brubeck, whose black bandmate and fellow World War II vet was turned away from a whites-only restaurant in the South, recalling the first black man he ever met, who at the request of Brubeck's father opened his shirt to reveal a brand on his chest. Brubeck recalls his father telling him, "These things can't happen." Then, fighting back sobs, the aging pianist says, "That's what I fought for."

Ellington's trombone player John Sanders, now a Catholic priest, regretting not being able to tell the Duke how much happiness playing with him, just knowing him, had given him. His voice swelling with emotion, Sanders remembers how the Duke used to look at the band every night before their first number and smile, as if saying, "Here we are, all together again."

"Jazz" doesn't tell the whole story of jazz -- what could? But it celebrates a difficult art, and eloquently chronicles one of the America's lasting achievements. That'll do.

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