Burns dismisses such concerns. I will open up and redo this film if you can tell me with a straight face who among today's players are as important as Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Coltrane, and Davis. It takes distance. These are stories that are still going on. I'm not in the business of telling the present what it's about.
History is about stories that are over.
Prominent among Jazz 's commentators are writers Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray, both of whom are Marsalis' mentors, especially in Marsalis' directorship of New York's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Marsalis' overriding presence in Jazz has caused some consternation among jazz pundits who gripe that the trumpeter's personal agenda takes over Burns' film. Burns bristles at the suggestion. I interviewed Wynton and Gary Giddins before the script for Jazz was written, so their agendas don't dominate the film. I didn't let these people run with their own agendas. I negotiated their agendas for them.