Jason Van Bergen said, "The nearly 19 hours of documentary coverage contained in the "Jazz" series unravels like a fine wine", and due to the series' attention to detail, "a complete discussion of every episode in Ken Burns's "Jazz" would be better suited for a master's thesis" than to his brief review. ... Burns's encyclopedic rendering of the growth of jazz cannot be questioned. Followers of the music will need this set on their shelves; but perhaps slightly more surprisingly, serious students of American history may also require the set to supplement their versions of the past century."