Terry Gross

The acclaimed musician was a featured soloist in Count Basie's big band. He was awarded an achievement award from his hometown of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He looks back on his decades-long career as a working jazz musician.

Ray Fielding is a film scholar and cinematographer who developed the special effects for the director's recent movies. Fielding shares his experiences working on One from the Heart and Apocalypse Now.

Myrlie Evers' book about her late husband, the civil rights activist Medgar Evers, was recently adapted into a movie for public television. She talks about her upbringing in the South, her relationship with Evers, and her own work to advance African American civil rights.

Christopher Cerf's educational songs for children are featured on the television show Sesame Street. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about how he chooses his subject material and the popular songs he pays tribute to. An album of Sesame Street music, titled Born to Add, features many songs he wrote and performed.

William Schimmel is the accordionist for the Tango Project, and disagrees with those who malign the instrument and the dance/music. Schimmel has written a tango mass for accordion, conducted and performed in the Joseph Papp production of the "Three-Penny Opera," and composed the musical "Kill." Schimmel lives in New York and commutes to Philadelphia where he is the dean of the New Power School of Music.

Poet and performer Lane Kiyomi Nishikawa will be performing his one-man show about being Japanese-American "Life in the Fast Lane: Requiem for a Sansei Poet" in Philadelphia. The show contains stories and poems based on his life in Hawaii and San Francisco. He joins the show to discuss his work and life and perform selections from the show.

Seymour Hersh is an investigative journalist known in part for breaking the story of the My Lai Massacre for which he received a 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Hersh also won Polk Awards in 1969, 1973, 1974, and 1981. Hersh is currently the national correspondent for The Atlantic, and his new book is "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House." The book studies Kissinger's use and abuse of power during his international negotiations and his power plays within the Nixon administration. Hersh joins the show to discuss his book and career.

George Joseph Kresge, also known as "The Amazing Kreskin," is a popular mentalist. Kresge will perform at the Fantasy Film Expo this weekend.

Bill Bradley is a United States Senator from New Jersey. Bradley started his career as a professional basketball player and was sworn-in as the Senate's youngest member in 1979. Bradley has served on the Energy and Finance Committees, co-sponsored the Fair Tax Bill, been one of the architects of the windfall profits tax on oil, and brought a contract to the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Bradley is currently seeking Medicare reforms. Bradley joins the show to discuss his belief and legislative ideas; he will also respond to listener calls.

Sigi Shapiro is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, a coalition of 25 groups representing 70,000 Pennsylvanians. Shapiro joins the show how she became an activist in the disable rights movement and some of the current issues she is organizing around.