Historian and filmmaker Ken Burns and Annette Insdorf, Columbia's director of undergraduate film studies.

There's no mistaking a Ken Burns documentary film--close-up shots of old still photographs that blur into reveries of yesteryear; sporadic narration by critics, and an absorbing soundtrack that underscores our emotional involvement. Beyond the irresistible nostalgia and the popular appeal of his films, Burns challenges our notion of what America is.

At a recent talk before an audience on Jan. 18 at the 92nd St. Y, Burns showed clips from his new 10-part series on "Jazz," which airs through the end of January on PBS. He was interviewed by Annette Insdorf, Columbia's director of undergraduate film studies, and shared his views on the making of "Jazz."

The idea of doing a jazz series came to Burns by way of writer and essayist Gerald Early. "He told me that when they study our civilization two thousand years from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music," said Burns.

And with that bit of wisdom, Burns embarked on what he calls his trilogy of Americana that began with "The Civil War" (1990), then "Baseball" (1994) and now "Jazz."

"What each of the three subjects daily reminded us was that the genius of America is improvisation," said Burns. "In the quest for an American identity, the democracy has had to struggle with racism, immigration, world wars and inequalities. But the strength of our republic and thus its sustainability is our ability to reinvent and rediscover ourselves in light of the contradictions of individualism and community."

Nowhere is this more apparent than in America's native music. Burns said, "Jazz is not just about music, it's a prism through which so much of American history can be seen. It's about two world wars and a devastating depression. Jazz is about sex and the rituals of courtship. It's about drug abuse. It's about great American cities--New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City and New York. And jazz is about race and race relations and prejudice, about minstrelsy and Jim Crow, lynchings and civil rights. But it is also a message of hope and transcendence, of affirmation in the face of adversity, unequaled in the unfolding drama and parade we call American history."

Burns' travelogue of jazz history begins in its birthplace of New Orleans and moves northward to Chicago and eastward to New York and beyond, as it metamorphoses from swing, bebop and avant-garde to jazz-rock fusion, post-avant-gardism and other modern incarnations. From the pantheon of jazz musicians that includes Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, it is the trumpeter Armstrong who emerges as the most influential figure in jazz and arguably, the most important person in American music.

Burns said, "Armstrong is to 20th century music what Einstein is to physics, Freud is to interpretations of dreams and the Wright brothers are to travel."

At one point, Insdorf asked Burns, given the immense task of editing a six-year project down to 17 1/2 hours of air time, what part of the production process he enjoyed most.

For Burns, not only is it important to see photographs, but also to "listen" to them, by placing yourself in the actual photo and imagining the sounds around you. He is also passionate about capturing the perfect composition. But it is the actual editing process, he said, in which moments of epiphany take on emotional movement that he finds most rewarding.

The sheer logistics of the project were daunting: 3,000 pieces of music (only 498 used in the film); 1,000 hours of footage, and 20,000 still photographs, of which only 2,500 were used.

As the talk drew to a close, Burns fielded questions from the audience. A spectator took to task Burns' decision to skim over the last 25 years of jazz history, while excluding a number of other well-known musicians, such as Charles Mingus and Bud Powell.

He responded: "This is the beginning of jazz discussion, not the end. The past 25 years is still ongoing and evolving, so we lack historical perspective. Also, I wanted to give the film a feel and shape to it, and not just a laundry list of names, dates and events. The 'Jazz' series is to reacquaint those who know about the subject, and for those who don't know, it is a compelling story."

As jazz afficionados debate over the "in" versus the "out" list, Ken Burns has already looked ahead to his next project: Mark Twain in search of the American identity.

Brother and fellow filmmaker Ric Burns recently received a duPont-Columbia award for his work, "New York: A Documentary Film."

Ken Burns has made 18 films in all. They include: Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Huey Long.

Insdorf is the author of three highly regarded books, Francois Truffaut, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust, and Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski, and she writes frequently for The New York Times. Her work as a film scholar has earned her the distinction of Officier dans l'ordre des arts et des lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.