Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.

I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I've chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still lifes or landscapes.

The only art form that Americans have created that's recognized around the world is jazz music born in a community that had the peculiar experience of being unfree in a free land.

Wynton told us that Miles sold out, just wanted to make more money, just wanted to sell more records. I don't believe that Miles sold out but I'm not in a position to say.

Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.

Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.

History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.