Independent jazz producer Orrin Keepnews. For the past 30 years he's produced the music of jazz artists like Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner and Wes Montgomery. He was the founder of two important jazz labels, Riverside Records and Milestone Records. This year, he won a Grammy for the liner notes of a new box set of the complete Riverside recordings of Thelonious Monk.
Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Cracked Sidewalks" the new album from tenor saxophonist Rich Halley and his sextet. Halley lives in Oregon, a reminder, Kevin says, that not all jazz is spawned in New York.
Ian Whitcomb, an Englishman in love with American music. Since first coming to the United States in the early 60s, he has devoted his career to promoting and keeping alive the tradition of American popular song, particularly those from the Tin Pan Alley era.. His new book, Irving Berlin and Ragtime America, salutes the music of Irving Berlin, who will celebrate his 100th birthday this year.
Television Critic David Bianculli reviews "The Wonder Years," a new ABC series. The show is an extended flashback to 1968 and the junior high school days of Daniel Stern ("Diner" and "Breaking Away"), the show's narrator, and Fred Savage ("The Princess Bride"), who plays Stern as he was in 1968.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nick Kotz. His new book, Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber, is an in-depth examination of how cost over-runs, politics and s basic pork barrel mentality has compromised the making of the B-1 bomber. Kotz's study of military leadership won the National Magazine Award for Public Service. He also authored the highly acclaimed book, Let Them Eat Promises.
Peter Sichrovsky. His new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Young Jews in Germany and Austria Today, is an exploration of the lives and motivations of the European Jews who either stayed or returned to to live in countries whose people brought on them the horrors of the Holocaust. In the introduction, Sichrovsky says that his central question in researching the book was, "What does it mean for a Jew to live in Germany today?" His latest book Born Guilty: Children of Nazi Families explores "the other side."
Rap star Kool Moe Dee. When he first started rapping on park benches in the lat 70s, rap was a fad few believed would stick. Now rap has gone mainstream. Kool Moe Dee is considered the dean of the old school.
Ken Tucker reviews "Penn and Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends," an interactive home video cassette that features some of the magic duo's favorite scams.
Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson. When she moved to New York City in the early 80s, she decided to put her singing career behind her and concentrate on her family. She is now the best-known of several emerging female jazz singers. Her new album is titled "Days Aweigh."
Writer Robert Ludlum. His thrillers, all instant bestsellers, include The Osterman Weekend, The Aquitaine Progression and The Matarese Circle. His latest is titled The Icarus Agenda and places American hostages in the Mideast at the center of a superpower standoff. Ludlum is a former actor and theatrical producer who was 40 when he decided to try his hand at writing.
Actress Ruby Dee. Together with her husband Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, has performed on stage, screen and television for 30 years. In the early part of her career, she and her husband lived by staging church readings of black authors like Langston Hughes and Phillis Wheatley. One of their best-known projects was the 13-part PBS series, "With Ossie & Ruby," which showcased black artists like Louis Armstrong, Della Reese and Max Roach.
Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau, artistic directors of the American Ballroom Theater. In 1984, they formed the American Ballroom Theater to perform and preserve the tradition of ballroom dancing.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a recording featuring famed Italian tenor Placido Domingo singing pop songs like "Yesterday" and "Maria."
Drs. William Masters, Virginia Johnson and Robert Kolodny discuss their controversial book Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS. They argue in the book that the risk to the heterosexual population posed by the AIDS virus has been dramatically understated. Drs. Masters and Johnson are best-known for their work on sexuality, particularly the book Human Sexual Response. Also, a seven-minute interview with Nancy Padian, who is directing a California study into the transmission of AIDS in heterosexual couples.
Rock historian Ed Ward profiles the glitter rock band The New York Dolls. Their front man was David Johansen, who has since recast himself as the martini-swilling crooner Buster Poindexter.
Book critic John Leonard reviews S, the new novel by John Updike. The novel is a modern story that draws from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
