Using archival photographs and rare footage and interviews with friends and colleagues, Oscar® winner Brigitte Berman's acclaimed documentary paints a vivid portrait of a vanished era and brings to life the only cornetist Louis Armstrong regarded as an equal.

Among the pioneers of the untamed Oregon Territory of the 1850s are pack-mule express owner Logan Stuart, light-fingered banker/gambler George Camrose, Camrose’s fiancée Lucy Overmire, a villainous outlaw named Honey Bragg and gunfighter Johnny Steele, the friend of a man Camrose has killed.

This four-disc collection presents a diverse sampling of 200 shorts—jazz, country-western, folk, and the boogie woogie roots of rock ’n’ roll—newly restored from 35mm and 16mm materials preserved by the Library of Congress and other archives.