Music

Singer and actress Barbara Cook. Since the 1950's Cook has been in countless Broadway musicals--"Oklahoma", "The King and I", and Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" to name a few. She's been called a "no nonsense singer...able to thrust with gentility of tone." Cook has a new album--her first in five years--called "Dorothy Fields: Close as Pages in a Book." She won a Tony Award for her part as "Marian the librarian" which she originated in "The Music Man."

Drummer and lead vocalist for the rock group The Band, Levon Helm. Helm's Arkansas roots gave the Canadian group an American folk sound. In the 1960's The Band, got it's start backing Bob Dylan. They went on their own in 1968 with "Music From Big Pink." The Band is back with a new album, "Jericho," and a tour. Helm's written a book about The Band called "This Wheel's On Fire" (Morrow).

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews trumpeter Eddie Allen's (aka E.J. Allen) new album, "Another's Point of View."

Rock historian Ed Ward pays tribute to Otis Redding.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the Breeders new album "Last Splash"

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews "Back to Broadway," Barbara Streisand's new album of show tunes.

Ed Ward discusses a blues revival.

Jazz musician Joshua Redman. A self-taught tenor saxophonist, Redman has a new album, "Wish," which is his second album released this year. Redman won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991. Son of renowned free-jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman, Joshua Redman had the most influence from his mother who raised him alone. After Redman graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1991 he decided to pursue his love of jazz.

World music commentator Milo Miles on the rebirth of rock and roll -- in Mexico.

Ken Tucker reviews Garth Brook's new album, "In Pieces"

Kevin Whitehead reviews saxophonist Evan Parker's new release, "Conic Sections" on the Ah Um label.

Classical Music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviewed a new recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, played by Nigel Kennedy, conducted by Klaus Tennstedt, on the EMI label.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Reginald R. Robinson's album "The Stongman."

Novelist Frank Conroy. At 57, he's just published his first novel, "Body & Soul" (Houghton & Mifflin). He is currently the director of the prestigious Iowa Writers Program, and this novel has been long awaited by fans of his 1967 autobiography "Stop Time". Conroy has one other book, a collection of short stories called "Midair"; he's worked as a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village and Nantucket for many years.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Saturation," the new album from the band Urge Overkill. (Geffen)

Ken Tucker reviews the new benefit album organized to help singer/songwriter Victoria Williams, who is afflicted with multiple sclerosis: "Sweet Relief". The album features Lou Reed, Pearl Jam, Matthew Sweet and others performing her songs.

Music Critic Milo Miles thinks Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence is a gospel-blues great, one who hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "The John Coltrane Anthology: The Last Giant" (Rhino/Atlantic).

Singer/Songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore is in the studio for a concert. His music bears the influence of honky-tonk, Tex-Mex rhythms, and country and western. His spiritual influences include Hinduism and writers such as Aldous Huxley and W. Somerset Maugham. Gilmore is the kind of performer who defies definition, though he has been called the "Shaman of the Sagebrush." Gilmore's been playing music for over 20 years, first with the critically-acclaimed group the Flatlanders, then solo.