Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

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

You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time.

The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.

I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.

It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

I have made all my films for my children with the exception of my first film because my oldest daughter wasn't born when I was making the film about the Brooklyn Bridge.