Music

Rock historian Ed Ward profiles Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks. There's a new compilation of their music, The Most of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks.

Will Smith is starring in the new film Ali as fighter Muhammad Ali. The film begins in 1964, the year that Cassius Clay became world heavyweight champion, announced his conversion to Islam, and took on the name Muhammad Ali. The film is directed and co-written by Michael Mann who also made The Insider. Smith also starred in the films The Legend of Bagger Vance, Men In Black, Independence Day, and Six Degrees of Separation. Smith got his start as a rapper, making his first record in high school.

An interview with hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons.

Jazz trumpeter Steven Bernstein. With his quartet, Sex Mob, hes just released a new CD which pays homage to the music of James Bond films. Its called Sex Mob Does Bond (ropeadope records) and is the sextets third album. Bernstein also heads two other groups: Diaspora Soul which specializes in performing versions of ancient Jewish melodies, and Millennial Territory Orchestra with which he explores jazz from the 1920s and 1930s.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reflects on what music he has and hasn't been listening to.

World music critic Milo Miles profiles Indigedisc, a new record label that specializes in vintage and current African pop.

Rock critic Ken Tucker looks at two very different female musicians: Gillian Welch, whose new CD is Time The Revelator, and Nikka Costa, whose debut release is Everybody Got their Something.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Thrill Jockey, the new CD from the Chicago Underground Quartet. He also talks about a new re-issue of Miles Davis Live at the Fillmore East recordings.

We remember the world best known player of the mouth organ, Larry Adler. He died recently at the age of 87. He got started on vaudeville, and went on to perform with Fred Astaire, George Gershwin, Jack Benny and many others. When George Gershwin first heard Adler play Rhapsody in Blue on the mouth-organ he said, "It sounds as if the goddamned thing was written for you." Adler also played classical music and performed with a number of symphony orchestras. Adler moved to England after being blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews –Fear Not the Obvious— (Bloodshot Records) the debut album by a group called the Yayhoos.