Jazz

Jack Towers worked for the Department of Agriculture before pursuing his new career as an audio engineer. He finds and restores classic and little-know jazz albums and concerts, including an upcoming collection of Dean Benedetti's recordings of Charlie Parker. Towers hopes advances in digital technology will make his sometimes tedious methods obsolete.

Jazz guitarist Marty Grosz returns to Fresh Air to sing songs about cities where he's lived.

The New Orleans-based, twenty-year-old pianist and singer started performing when he was five, and later studied with Ellis Marsalis. Connick says, as a younger musician, he has more to prove -- which fuels his drive to learn more.

Milt Hinton isn't just an in-demand bass player -- he's also an accomplished photographer who has taken thousands of pictures of jazz musicians. He joins guest host Marty Moss-Coane to talk about growing up in the south and, later, in Chicago--where Al Capone had an unexpected impact on his youth. Hinton's collection of his photos, Bass Lines, has just been published.

Jazz singer Sylvia Syms. During the 40s and 50s, she perfected her stage style and voice in New York's jazz clubs, including The Village Vanguard and The Latin Casino where she became friends and collaborators with Erol Garner, Billy Holiday and Frank Sinatra. She appeared on stage as well, originating the role of Bloody Mary in "South Pacific," and still sings the musical's centerpiece "Bali Hai" in her cabaret show. Syms teaches voice and song interpretation at Texas' Northwood Institute.

Composer, arranger, conductor Gunther Schuller. One of the most ardent supporters of new music, Schuller is equally at home with the music of bebop and the big band era as he with the 12-tone classical composers. Schuller is the past head of the New England Conservatory of Music, where he founded the New England Conservatory's Ragtime Band. In the late 40s, when he first cultivated his eclectic approach to music, Schuller held jobs simultaneously with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and with Miles Davis' tuba band.

Singer Helen Merrill. Her latest album features arrangements by the late Gil Evans, with whom she first worked over 30 years ago. Merrill was one of the most acclaimed jazz stars of the 50s when she left America for Italy and then Japan.

Composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, who introduced America and Europe to bossa nova, the sensual, urbane musical idiom of Brazil. Before he started composing bossa novas in the 50s, he wrote symphonies, drawing from his training as a classical musician. His most widely circulated works include "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Desafinado."

Blues singer Moses Rascoe sings "St. Louis Blues." Rascoe, who retired from truck driving in 1983, was discovered at a folk society performance in York, Pa. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two new albums featuring trumpeter Paul Smoker. Smoker studied trumpet with Doc Severinsen and has played in a varied of settings, including orchestras, brass quintets and circus bands.