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Host Liane Hansen talks to author David Berger about the photography of the late jazz bassist Milt Hinton. Berger has co-authored the book Playing the Changes: Milt Hinton's Life in Stories and Photographs.

Read an excerpt from historian Bob Riesman's look at the great blues man's ever-evolving persona.

Driving his Chevrolet Nova up and down Highway 61 in Mississippi, William Ferris stopped at churches and juke joints and penitentiaries to record the music he found. In his new book, Give My Poor Heart Ease, Ferris explores the legacy of the "The Blues Highway."

Wynton Marsalis puts down his horn and picks up his pen for his latest project: Jazz ABZ. In the book, the jazz trumpeter shares his deep knowledge of jazz in all its forms with children.

More than 4,600 votes were cast by our listeners for the songs they felt were the best jazz vocal songs of all time. The votes have been counted and the top 50 vocal jazz songs are now available!

While Harry Potter has grown to become a huge a marketing event, the book series is still, at its heart, a literary event. Critic-at-large John Powers considers kids today lucky to have that experience. He compares it to his experiences purchasing and reading the Hardy Boys mysteries as a child.

After soaring to fame with Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd built a solid film career. But he's still capitalizing on his early hit, The Blues Brothers (now available in a 25th-anniversary DVD). He serves on the board of the "House of Blues" restaurant and concert-venue franchise, and last year he published a book as his Blues Brothers alter-ego, Elwood, interviewing blues greats. (This interview was first broadcast on Nov. 22, 2004.)

Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead picks CDs, books and a DVD for the jazz lover on your list this holiday season. His selections include a book of Sonny Rollins photographs and music from the first season of the HBO series Treme.

Robin D.G. Kelley's new book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, focuses on the career of the eccentric jazz pianist and composer. It reveals new details about Monk's life, music and mental health problems, and provides a glimpse into the New York jazz scene of the mid-twentieth century.

Robin Meloy Goldsby has spent decades making "pleasant and unobtrusive" background music as a cocktail lounge piano player. Now she steps front and center with a memoir called Piano Girl: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian.