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Celebrating 100 years (give or take) of jazz organist Jimmy Smith

By Kevin Whitehead

Published December 5, 2025 at 11:03 AM CST

Some books give Smith's birthdate as Dec. 8, 1925, but more recent sources cite 1928 as his birth year. Regardless, the late musician always delivered the goods, even as the beats behind him changed.

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Fresh Air

Kevin Whitehead

Kevin Whitehead is the jazz critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Currently he reviews for The Audio Beat and Point of Departure.

See stories by Kevin Whitehead

NPR News

Let 'The Secret Agent' fill you in on what it's like to live under a dictatorship

John Powers

A research scientist is on the run from hitmen in this thrilling film. Set in 1977 Brazil, The Secret Agent captures the daily realities and surreal absurdities of life in an authoritarian state.
Remembering playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard

Terry Gross

Stoppard, who died Nov. 29, wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Real Thing, and the screenplays for Empire of the Sun and Shakespeare in Love. Originally broadcast in 1991.
Remembering soul guitarist and music producer Steve Cropper

Terry Gross

As a member of Stax Records' Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Cropper helped create some of the most important Southern soul music of the '60s. He died Dec. 3. Originally broadcast in 1990.
NPR News

George Clooney's kids don't care about his success (and that's a good thing)

Tonya Mosley

In Jay Kelly, Clooney plays an emotionally stunted movie star struggling with work and family life. He can relate: "We're all balancing it. We're never getting it perfect."
Did the Trump administration commit a war crime in its attack on a Venezuelan boat?

Terry Gross

Washington Post reporter Alex Horton talks about the Sept. 2 U.S. military strike on a boat with alleged "narco terrorists," in which a second strike was ordered to kill two survivors in the water.