Spike Lee on all that jazz

Contributing editor Mike Wilmington interviews Spike Lee at the filmmaker's 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks as he is finishing Mo' Better Blues, starring Denzel Washington as a jazz trumpeter. "I think it's gonna surprise a lot of people - because they might expect that racism is my only subject matter," says Lee. "I was raised in a jazz household, the son of a very famous jazz musician and composer." While he commends Clint Eastwood for making Bird, Lee adds, "You really didn't get the sense of the genius that Charlie Parker was. You only saw the pathos. Not once did he ever show him practicing. These guys practice.... With my film, of course, there are going to be complaints, and if they're true, hopefully, whoever does the next jazz film will do it better than me."