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.

I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.

I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

The way I work, the interview never becomes larger than the person being interviewed.

In a sense I've made the same film over and over again. In all of them I've asked, 'Who are we as Americans?

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.