Terry Gross

John is the son of jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. John's albums include Live At Birdland, The Rare Delights of You and Kisses in the Rain. This interview first aired October 23, 1997.

He's been called the most inventive American tenor player in creative music. His father, Rodd Keith (also known as Rod Rodgers) was killed when he was struck by cars on the Hollywood Freeway after leaping or falling from the Santa Monica Boulevard overpass. Eskelin only knew his father for the first eighteen months of his life. As he grew up he was inspired and intrigued by the continuous stories he heard about him and his musical talent. He has produced a collection of his father's recordings titled I died Today - Music of Rodd Keith.

He died last night at his home at the age of 82. Brinkley was born in 1920 and raised in Wilmington, N.C., and began writing for the local paper in high school. He soon graduated to the United Press and by World War II was working for NBC Radio in Washington, D.C. He moved into television and was paired with Chet Huntley at the 1956 political conventions. Their immediate chemistry led to the top-rated Huntley-Brinkley Report on the NBC Network. He left NBC to join ABC and host This Week With David Brinkley. During his career, Brinkley won 10 Emmy awards and three Peabodys.

In her new memoir, Living History, she writes about growing up in the 1950s, her life in the White House, the Senate, and her husband's sex scandal.

The Broadway musical Hairspray was the big winner this week at the Tony Awards. It won awards for best direction, score, book and costume. Hairspray is based on Waters' 1988 film of the same name.

Ricks covers the military for The Washington Post. Ricks recently returned from Iraq where he was semi-embedded with troops in Baghdad.

The 78-year-old singer is currently performing at Birdland in New York City. Previously, Carroll spent 25 years playing at Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. This year, she received three lifetime achievement awards; one of them was the Kennedy Center's Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award. Carroll has a number of albums to her credit; her latest is the new solo album Morning in May.

Stephan Bognar is a field agent for the San Francisco-based international non-profit wildlife conservation group, WildAid. Bognar just returned from two months in Baghdad, where he helped with the effort to rescue and rehabilitate the animals at the Baghdad Zoo. When he arrived, only 32 of the 600 animals remained, the rest were stolen or roaming the streets. The ones left at the zoo were suffering from neglect, malnutrition and dehydration. Bognar helped in the efforts to care for the animals, and to find the lost ones.

He is also known as "Questlove" of the hip-hop group The Roots. The Grammy award-winning sextet has six albums to its credit. Their latest CD is Phrenology. Their first single from the album is "Break You Off." One reviewer writes, "To fully savor the sound, you've got to commit to spending time with The Roots, to wallow in both the music and the message.