We remember jazz musician Art Farmer. He died on Monday at the age of 71 from heart failure. Farmer was an important second-generation be-bop musician, and also known for his warm tone and lovely ballads on the trumpet and fluegelhorn. He worked with bands led by Wardell Gray, Horace Silver, and Gerry Mulligan. In the 1950s he formed the Jazztet, a sextet with saxophonist Benny Golson, and they wrote many compositions together. (REBROADCAST from 7/21/87)
Bassist and singer Josh Haden is Charlie's son. After years of playing punk, he founded the trio "Spain" and their 1995 debut album "Blue Moods of Spain" was critically acclaimed. Their new album is "She Haunts My Dreams" (Restless Records). The music on their new CD has been described as "languid," "melancholy" and "cabaret-ready country music."
Jazz bassist Charlie Haden. His newest release with his Quartet West is "The Art of The Song" (Verve). Haden formed the quartet to play the music of the 1940s and early 50s. He's worked with jazz musicians Art Pepper, Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman. And he's recorded with many artists including Abbey Lincoln, Bill Frisell, Joshua Redman, Rick Lee Jones, and others.
Eric Idle was one of the six original members of Monty Python's Flying Circus which, by the way, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. He wrote many of the songs from the show like, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." Since then, Idle has written a number of books. His latest is a comic science-fiction thriller, "The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel." (Pantheon books)
Screenwriter and director Audrey Wells. She is making her directorial debut with the new film "Guinevere" starring Stephen Rea and Sarah Polley. The film is about a mentor relationship between an older man and a young woman, and the needs and insecurities that compel them. Wells also wrote the screenplay for "The Truth about Cats and Dogs."
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the new album by singer/pianist Diana Krall, "When I Look in Your Eyes" (Verve), and the reissue by Nat King Cole, "After Midnight: The Complete Session" (Capitol Jazz).
Former mail order magnate J. Peterman. His text-heavy apparel catalogs spun stories of adventure, and earned him a place as a fictional character on the hit T-V series "Seinfeld." But his business failed, and now he's written an article in the current issue of "The Harvard Business Review" to tell what happened.
Writer Edmund Morris. His biography of former president Ronald Reagan, "Dutch," (Random House) has garnered a lot of controversy. Morris uses a fictional narrator to tell much of the story, taking unprecedented artistic liberties. This is the first biography authorized by a sitting president, and it took Morris fourteen years to finally complete the work. Morris, a South African by birth, is the author of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," which won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. He is currently at work on a second volume of the Roosevelt biography.
Film critic John Powers reviews "Three Kings," starring George Clooney, Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg. It's written and directed by David O. Russell, whose last hit film was "Flirting With Disaster."
Jose Ramos-Horta ("Joe-zay Ra-MOSH Horta") is an exiled East Timorese resistance leader. In 1996 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Belo from East Timor. Since 1975, when Indonesia invaded and annexed the newly independent East Timor, Ramos-Horta has denounced Indonesia's actions and defended the rights of East Timorese, as an ambassador to the U.N. and a representative for independence groups.
Trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas doesn't like to categorize music. He's currently fronting seven ensembles, of varying compositional, improvisational and instrumental styles, including the Dave Douglas String Group, the Tiny Bell Trio, and the Sextet. He's been a sideman with Don Byron, Myra Melford and Uri Caine. Douglas has many compositions and recordings to his credit. His latest recordings are "Songs for Wandering Souls" (Winter & Winter) by the Tiny Bell Trio, and "Convergence" (Soul Note) by the Dave Douglas String Group.
Historian Christopher Andrew is the author of the new book "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB" (Basic books). The book is based on the documents smuggled out of the KGB archives by Vasili Mitrokhin, who worked for 30 years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB. In 1972 he began making notes and transcripts of the archives which he then smuggled out daily and hid. He defected to Britain in 1992.
The Kansas board of Education decided recently to leave evolution out if its required curriculum. Linguist Geoff Nunberg examines how the language of the controversy has changed over the century.
Journalist and staff writer for The New Yorker Nicholas Lemann is the author of the new book "The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy" (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux). It's a social history of how reformers in the mid 1940s set upon universal testing criteria (the Educational Testing Service, purveyors of the SAT) as a way of creating a new democratic elite, drawn from every section and every background of America. And it's about how that 50 year old system has failed.
From the WNBA'S Houston Comets, Cynthia Cooper. She's twice been voted the league's Most Valuable Player. She's written a new autobiography about her rise from an inner-city childhood in Los Angeles, to becoming a pro-basketball player. Her new book is "She Got Game: My Personal Odyssey" (Warner Books)
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Remedy" the first full-length CD released in America by the British duo Basement Jaxx, consisting of the two DJs Simon Ratcliffe & Felix Buxton.
Choying Drolma is a Tibetan Buddhist nun who practices a contemplative system of Buddhism called Cho. As part of that system, she also sings religious songs and chants. Their music was recorded by guitarist Steve Tibbetts who then created guitar arrangements around it. The result was the CD "Cho" (newly released on Hannibal Records). Drolma is currently on tour with Tibbetts and her fellow nuns.
