Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the new album from Los Angeles rapper Ice-T. The album's called "Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say." It's a blast back at groups such as the Parents Music Resource Center, which has been pushing for a rating system similar to the one use in the movie industry.
Jazz composer/clarinetist John Carter. He has just completed a five part music series chronicling the black migration experience from Africa to America: "Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music. The final program in the series, "Shadows on A Wall," premiered recently as part of the New Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The festival celebrates performers working on the edge of classical, rock, and jazz styles. Carter's performances are also out on disc.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a recording of 18th century flute quartets by the Mannheim Quartet. The group performs several of Mozart's quartets here on original instruments.
Musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon. His new book, "Mozart: The Golden Years," traces the most troubling and creative period of the composers life, the years 1781-91. During this period, Mozart completed three controversial operas, married and wooed his wife Constanze Weber, became entangled in financial difficulties, and lived through the death of his father. In this book, the second of two volumes on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Landon, further explores the link between Mozart's "manic depressive disorder" and his creativity.
The French Chef, Julia Child. She spent three decades explaining the mysteries of classic French cuisine to modern American audiences. Child has hosted several cooking shows on Public Television, earning Peabody and Emmy Awards in the process, and written several cookboks. Her new book, is titled "The Way to Cook." It's a 50-dollar tome that...in Child's words...tells "everything [I] know about the essentials of cooking today."
Rock historian Ed Ward examines the performers that led the way for Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis burst on the scene in the late 50s, but Ed shows that lots of other guys were pounding the keys way before the killer.
Film maker Gus Van Sant. After years as an independent film maker in Portland, Oregon, and one full-length movie ("Mala Noche"), Van Sant has just finished "Drugstore Cowboy," starring Matt Dillon about a junkie trying to maintain his habit.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Warm Evenings," the new album by cornet player Warren Vaché (pronounced va-SHAY). On this album, Vaché teams up with classical music's Beaux-Arts String Quartet.
Former first lady Nancy Reagan. When the Reagans entered the White House, Nancy was a relatively anonymous first lady, best known for her strident "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. But toward the end of President Reagan's second term, it became more apparent that Nancy Reagan's role in running the government was much larger than imagined, and it turns out many of her and her husband's decisions were influenced by a California astrologer. Nancy Reagan has a new memoir, called "My Turn."
World music commentator Milo Miles explains how Peter Gabriel transformed folk music of the Middle East into the world pop sound that became the soundtrack for Scorsese's film "The Last Temptation of Christ."
Choreographer Eliot Feld. He founded the Feld Ballet in 1974 as a place where classical ballet and modern dance could exist together. The company is still going strong, touring throughout America and overseas. Feld has also created ballets for many of the world's great companies, among them the American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet of Canada, and the New York City Ballet.
Book critic Maureen Corrigan takes a look at the book reviewers bible, "Publishers Weekly." She examines how PW has often hawked new books that went nowhere, while barely mentioning books that went on to become classics.
Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould is a professor of geology and curator at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. He writes columns for "Natural History Magazine" and "Discover Magazine," and has written several books, including the award-winning "The Mismeasure of Man." Gould uses his writing and teaching to illuminate and demystify the scientific method and to provide a historical perspective on science for the layman.
Anthropologist Richard Nelson. His new book, "The Island Within," is an account of Nelson's explorations of an uninhabited island near his Pacific Northwest home.
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews two new albums: "Wild Weekend" by NRBQ and "The People's Republic of Rock n Roll" by Peter Stampfel and the Bottle Caps. Ken says while they may not have much in common, both are critically-acclaimed cult groups releasing albums after a long silence.
Writer Lawrence Grobel (pronounced gro-BEL). Grobel has just written "The Hustons," a profile of the film industry's most famous dynasty. The book centers around actor and director John Huston, but also follows the lives his father Walter and his daughter Anjelica, a trio that represents three generations of Oscar winners. For the book, Grobel conducted more than 200 interviews with the Hustons, the friends, enemies, and associates.
