Behind the scenes during the golden age of the Broadway musical: Susan Loesser, daughter of Frank Loesser, composer of the classic songs "Heart and Soul" and "Baby It's Cold Outside". He also wrote the score for "Guys and Dolls" which is now being revived on Broadway. Loesser's new memoir of her father is called "A Most Remarkable Fella."
Lloyd Schwartz says that Spanish cellist's renditions of Bach are unrivaled. He reviews Casals' complete performances the composer's cello suite, as well as a more recent recording of Beethoven's trios.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new CD collecting Boulez-led performances of works by, modern composers like Varese, Ligeti, and Webern. Schwartz says you'd be hard-pressed to find a better guide to this often difficult music.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the new box set Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost, celebrating the saxophonist and composer. Through renewed interest — and a string of reissues — Ayler has grown increasingly influential and appreciated in recent years.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz that many performers have overlooked Liszt's music, in part because of the composer's flamboyant reputation. But a new album by pianist Russell Sherman reveals the craft and innovations of Liszt's work.
We remember jazz vocalist Betty Carter with a 1990 interview. She was considered one of jazz's great singers, composers and arrangers. She was known for her work with small groups, her control of tempo, and her vocal improvisations. In 1961 she recorded what became a classic album, "Ray Charles and Betty Carter." In 1993 she began the Jazz Ahead series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Last year she received the National Medal of Arts. She died on Saturday of pancreatic cancer. She was 69. (REBROADCAST from 11/28/90)
Cruikshank's newest work, Face Like a Frog, is now playing at film festivals. It features a soundtrack by composer Danny Elfman. She joins Fresh Air to talk about some of her earlier works, and what it takes to make a career in cartoons.
For 45 years, Bowles has been writing novels, stories, essays, poetry and autobiography. He started out as a composer, studying with Aaron Copeland. Bowles was friends with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, and later became a "resident guru" for several generations of American writers including Tennesee Williams and William Burroughs. Since 1947, he's lived in Tangier, Morocco. Best known for his novel "The Sheltering Sky," he has a new anthology, called "Too Far From Home."
When his mother was turning 90, music critic Lloyd Schwartz wrote poems that put her memories into verse. Composer Mohammed Fairouz set three of the poems to music on the new recording, No Orpheus.
The pianist's new album features some of the most difficult etudes ever written for solo piano by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti. "Ligeti took the piano to places it had never been before," he says, "and makes demands of the pianist and the mind that had never been made before."
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews "Britten as Performer" a collection of five CDs on the BBC label featuring composer Benjamin Britten as pianist and conductor.
Black South African jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin. She's led many groups and has also recorded with her husband, composer and pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, also known as "Dollar Brand."
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead continues with part three of his Avant-Garde Made Easy series. This time he considers composer, improviser and saxophonist Anthony Braxton.
Sue Graham Mingus' new memoir Tonight at Noon is about her love affair with the late jazz musician and composer Charles Mingus. She is a former magazine editor and publisher, and now works as a music producer. She also created and directs repertory ensembles that carry on the music of her late husband. Tonight at Noon... Three or Four Shades of Love, a CD featuring tracks by the Mingus Big Band and the Charles Mingues Orchestra, was recently released on the Dreyfus Jazz Label.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection, a 12-disc DVD set of musicals created by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.
Critic Lloyd Schwartz welcomes the opera star's new album, Mission, which breathes new life into the work of Italian composer Agostino Steffani. Bartoli, he says, has an astonishing capacity for vocal fireworks and warm, delicate lyricism.
Transformations and Further Passages, a lively new album by Germany's The Clarinet Trio, revives tunes written by German jazz composers in the 1950s and '60s.
J.J. Johnson, a pioneer of the modern jazz trombone. In 1970, he moved to Hollywood to work as a composer and arranger for television. He's toured the country recently, and a new CD of sessions he recorded in the 60s has just been reissued.
Though known for her avant-garde concert performances, the 92-year-old soprano recorded songs by 19th-century classical composers, including Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, when she was turning 60.
