Thomas Mallon

Summary

Below is a detailed, long-form summary of the Fresh Air episode “Thomas Mallon” (released August 15, 2025), hosted by NPR’s Terry Gross. In this episode, Thomas Mallon—esteemed novelist and essayist—is interviewed about his new work exploring the early AIDS epidemic in New York, his novel Up with the Sun, and his decades-long fascination with the past. Mallon blends personal narrative with historical investigation, offering insights into the emotional realities of living through a crisis and the power of memory in shaping art.

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1. Episode Overview

• Purpose and Theme
 – Thomas Mallon discusses his latest memoir‐derived work, The Very Heart of New York Diaries 1983–1994, which revisits his life during the early AIDS crisis in Manhattan.
 – He also reflects on his earlier work of historical fiction—most notably Up with the Sun—and the way the past functions as both a safe harbor and a source of creative inspiration.
 – The conversation weaves together memories of personal loss and public history, while depicting the intensity of living through uncertain times, both in the arts and in the shadow of a devastating epidemic.

────────────────────────────── 2. Key Discussion Points and Insights

• Early Interests and the Spark for Storytelling (Timestamps 02:12 – 03:42)
 – Mallon recounts his early fascination with Dick Kallman—an actor he first encountered on the short-lived 1965–66 sitcom Hank.
  ◦ “I used to watch his sitcom… and he sort of stuck with me” (approx. 02:15).
 – The comedic conceit of Hank—about a college dropout disguising himself to pursue an education—left a lasting impression on Mallon, prompting him to later delve into Kallman’s tragic real-life fate and the ways performance and identity intertwine.

• Research into Closeted Lives on Broadway and Hollywood (Timestamps 04:16 – 06:52)
 – Mallon explores the challenges faced by closeted gay actors in the mid-20th century.
  ◦ He recalls interviewing friends and gathering “hundreds and hundreds of clippings” to piece together Kallman’s life, noting that while Broadway might seem like an open environment, even there, “you just couldn’t ask” someone about their true identity.
 – He shares Rita Gardner’s reminiscences of colleagues like Kenneth Nelson, highlighting the unspoken struggles and the stigma perpetuated by harsh gossip columnists.
  ◦ An illustrative quote: “Gossip columnists made these nasty little crusades… [giving] a hard edge” (around 07:18).

• Life During the AIDS Epidemic and the Diaries (Timestamps 08:17 – 11:34)
 – Mallon recounts his days as a young academic-turned-writer in 1980s New York amid mounting fears of AIDS, when even testing was fraught with dread.
  ◦ He describes the constant anxiety—“whether I’d get my own death sentence”—and the bittersweet, manic quality of the diary entries he made during that period.
 – He emphasizes that the raw immediacy of those journals “did not know… what was going to happen” and that recounting these early emotions was vital for preserving the memory of that turbulent era.

• Personal Loss and Reflections on Mortality (Timestamps 15:12 – 19:36)
 – Mallon discusses his brief, troubled romance with his boyfriend Tom, who died of AIDS in October 1984.
  ◦ The loss led to a deep bond with Tom’s family—a relationship that has endured for decades.
 – He candidly reflects on the harsh hospital protocols of the day, where even visits to see a dying friend were shrouded in fear and alienation.
  ◦ “I was very frightened to have the test” (around 18:48) underscores the paralyzing uncertainty of the time.

• Revisiting the Diaries and the Weight of History (Timestamps 11:34 – 14:23 and 21:50 – 25:31)
 – Mallon shares the mixed emotions that come with rereading his old diaries: embarrassment, gratitude, and a poignant sense of how the smallest recollections could transform dramatically over time.
  ◦ He recalls a seemingly mundane remark about dining at Windows on the World—a detail imbued with heartbreaking significance post-9/11 (14:21).
 – The experience serves as a meditative reflection on aging, loss, and the fragile nature of life. He expresses relief at knowing his HIV test was negative in 1991, which allowed him to continue pursuing his creative ambitions.

• The Role of the Past in His Work (Timestamps 23:10 – 24:28)
 – As the conversation moves toward his novel Up with the Sun, Mallon explains how he often portrays the past as “a place that can keep you safe from the present,” quoting directly from a character who celebrates memory as a refuge.
 – This theme, he notes, recurs across his work; earlier in his career, he explored similar sentiments in novels like Dewey Defeats Truman, where the lure of the past offers a comforting alternative to an unpredictable present.

────────────────────────────── 3. Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the charm and preposterous nature of Hank:
 – “It was sort of charming and preposterous. And I used to watch it. And [Kallman] sort of stuck with me.” (Approx. 02:15–02:35)

• On the urgency and raw power of diary writing during the AIDS epidemic:
 – “If the diaries had any value at all, it was their immediacy… the sense that the person writing this did not know what was going to happen.” (Approx. 11:59)

• On the comfort of revisiting the past:
 – In discussing his latest novel, Mallon reflects, “All my life I've loved the past as a place that can keep you safe from the present.” (Approx. 23:59)

────────────────────────────── 4. Timestamps Overview of the Main Segments

• 00:00–00:33 – An introductory ad for DSW sets the stage before the show’s content.
• 00:33–03:42 – Introduction of Thomas Mallon, his diaries, and his early years during the AIDS epidemic in Manhattan.
• 03:42–08:17 – Mallon explains how his fascination with actor Dick Kallman started, detailing the quirky charm of Hank and its impact on him.
• 08:17–11:34 – Discussion shifts to life during the AIDS crisis, Mallon’s experiences as a young writer, and the raw emotions captured in his diaries.
• 11:34–14:23 – He reflects on the immediacy of his diary entries, including poignant details like his view over Manhattan at Windows on the World.
• 15:12–19:36 – The conversation covers Mallon’s personal relationships, particularly his short but impactful romance with Tom, and the pervasive fear of AIDS transmission.
• 21:50–25:31 – Mallon explains the significance of eventually knowing he was HIV-negative, and contemplates how these experiences shaped his views on mortality and creative expression.
• 25:31 and beyond – The transcript transitions into other Fresh Air segments (including tributes to jazz singer Sheila Jordan and film reviews) that, while enriching the programming, are separate from the central conversation with Mallon.

────────────────────────────── 5. Conclusion

In “Thomas Mallon,” the conversation with Terry Gross is as much a historical inquiry as it is an intimate memoir. Mallon artfully bridges the personal with the historical—detailing the joys, anxieties, and irrevocable losses of the AIDS epidemic while exploring how the past continues to shape his literary identity. His narrative is underscored by an enduring belief that the past, with all its imperfections and memories, can offer sanctuary and creative renewal in a challenging present. Listeners gain not only insight into Mallon’s personal journey but also a deeper understanding of a pivotal era in New York’s cultural history.

This rich and reflective episode captures the immediacy and poignancy of a time marked by uncertainty, resilience, and the enduring power of storytelling.

Transcript

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[C]

I'm David Biancooley. Living through the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s is the subject of Thomas Mallon's diaries, which were excerpted in the New Yorker a few years ago. They are now collected in his new book, the Very Heart of New York Diaries, 1983-1994. Mallon was in his 30s then and living in Manhattan. He was watching his boyfriend, friends and fellow churchgoers get sick and die, leaving him in a constant state of anxiety over if and when he'd get his own death sentence. Mallon is best known for his historical novels. His latest, up with the sun, ends about where the journal excerpts begin. The novel is based on the life of a fairly obscure subject, Dick Kalman, a closeted gay actor in the 1950s and 60s who who never quite made it. He was a part of Lucille Ball's Desilu Workshop and co starred in the Broadway musical Seventeen. But after starring in a touring production of how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and in a 1965 sitcom called Hank, about the operator of a campus food truck, his roles dried up. Coleman went into the antiques business with Dolores Gray, who had starred in several movie musicals. In 1980, Kallman and his boyfriend were murdered in their Manhattan apartment by robbers, a murder that made the tabloids. Mallon also has written novels about Watergate, Nixon and the couple who shared Lincoln's box seats at Ford Theater the night he was assassinated. Terry Gross spoke with Thomas Mallon in 2023.

[A]

Thomas Mallon, welcome to FRESH AIR. You're such a good writer.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

Thanks.

[A]

Why did you want to write about this actor, Dick Colman? I certainly had never heard of him before. I imagine most of the people in our audience have never heard of him either.

[D]

I used to watch his sitcom in 1965-66, which was the one year it was on. I was 13 years old at the time and I desperately wanted to go to college.

[A]

It was called Hank, by the way for anyone who wants to know, yeah.

[D]

The conceit was that he played a college drop in. He didn't have the money for tuition, but he was desperate to get an education. And so he would disguise himself as other students. And he was always one step ahead of the registrar who was chasing him. It was sort of charming and preposterous. And I used to watch it. And he sort of stuck with me and the program stuck with me. And lo and behold, you know, in 1980, he's murdered Long since out of show business. Murdered in Upper Manhattan, the east side of Manhattan. And I heard about this and I began squirreling away clippings many years later, and I would set it aside. I really started to write the book in earnest around 2008, then set it aside for a decade to write this political trilogy set in Washington, and then went back to it and fortunately, in time enough to talk to a number of people who had known him and to be able to reconstruct the story as well as I could.

[A]

By the way, Hank had a theme song. The sitcom Hank had a theme song with a lyric written by Johnny Mercer. I mean, that's pretty classy.

[D]

That was about the only really distinguished thing about the program.

[A]

Could you sing the lyric?

[D]

The first line of it is, he's up with the sun and he's got the college winging as he goes about another swingin day. And the conceit was that he was constantly doing odd jobs to earn money. He was ra little sister because their parents were dead. I mean, it was kind of a comic tearjerker in some ways. And there was a tremendous sweetness to the character as well as a lot of gumption. Kallman in real life had plenty of gumption, but I think very little sweetness.

[A]

I think people might have caught that, that first line of the lyric, he's up with the sun. That's where the title of your novel, up with the sun, comes from.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. So what kind of research did you do about what it meant to be gay and closeted on Broadway and in Hollywood? You know, one of the obvious differences is, like on Broadway, so many men traditionally, you know, have been gay, including some of the best, like, songwriters who ever wrote for Broadway musicals. In Hollywood, I think there was a big gay, closeted population, but probably not as big as on Broadway.

[D]

Well, you know, I talked to people who had known Coleman and went through any number of hundreds and hundreds of clippings and reviews and everything. And, you know, it was the time when later in the 50s, when he was Trying to get a foothold in Hollywood. He would be set up on dates, you know, by his age and dates, needless to say, with young women and who were sort of aware or not aware that they were really, you know, functioning as beards for this. The lockdown, as you say. You would think, of all places, Broadway would be a place where, to a certain extent, you could be yourself. But I don't think that was really very true. I spoke a few years ago to Rita Gardner, who was the original female lead in the Fantastics, which ran for decades and decades off Broadway. And she played the part opposite Kenneth Nelson, who figures in this book. He knew Coleman. Their career sort of dovetailed each other in some ways for a number of years. And Kenneth Nelson was much beloved by people who worked with him. And Rita told me that, you know, she says, of course I knew Kenny was gay, and sometimes I would see him troubled or down about something. And she says, as amazing as it sounds now, you just couldn't ask. Even in the world of off Broadway theater. It was just too hot to handle back in those days. And she was remembering this in her 80s, and she was just shaking her head over it.

[A]

Another thing that closeted actors on Broadway and also in Hollywood had to deal with is the gossip columnists, because they could out you. I don't know if this is a real quote from Earl Wilson, who was a gossip columnist at the New York Post at the time, but in one of his columns he wrote, which restaurant chain has been purging its New York branches of swishes?

[D]

That's for real? That's for real, yeah. And there would be these obliquely phrased items about people. The gossip columnists had a tremendously hard edge. I remember I was a great reader of the newspaper from the time I was about 7 years old. And I remember writers like Dorothy Kilgallen writing about show business, sometimes writing about politics, too. And there was a hard edge. And if they took a dislike to somebody, they made these nasty little crusades against them. And this was the shame that could not speak its name, let alone the love that could not speak its name. But gossip columnists did find a way of getting it into the papers. For instance, here in Washington, where I live, the Washington Evening Star, wonderful old paper if you read it. In the 1950s, the only time there's ever an overt mention of homosexuality is when somebody gets arrested.

[A]

Thomas Mallon, your novel up with the sun ends at about the same time that your diary excerpts, recently published in the New Yorker, begins. And Those are your diaries, excerpts of your diaries during the AIDS epidemic, the very early days of it, when you were living in Manhattan and so many people you knew had AIDS and were dying or had already died. So let's talk about those diaries. You were in your 30s in the 1980s when AIDS was first identified and then became an epidemic. Who were you then?

[D]

I was an academic who really wanted to be a writer. I taught at Vassar for about a dozen years. I started there in my late 20s, and while I was still there, I moved to New York. I couldn't take living on campus and sort of being part of the college 24 7. So I rented this ancient little walk up apartment right near Grand Central and began trying to extract myself from academic life. And in some ways I was living my 20s and my 30s. I even wrote about that somewhere. I was getting some traction as a writer. I was beginning to write a lot of literary journalism. I was starting to write fiction on my own. And I was doing this in a way with very little risk in my life compared to the way most young writers in New York have to operate. I was a tenured professor at this fancy college and then, you know, saw my way out of that. But whereas there was very little risk financially for me, very little risk professionally for me, I was suddenly engulfed in risk that all of my friends were. I was. When it came to romance, I was rather a late bloomer, but not late enough that I wasn't worried that one involvement in particular that I had had would likely render me sick at some point. And we were, my friends and I, we were all beset with anxieties of one kind or another and had to make decisions and consider contingencies. I remember coming across something in the diary. I was writing a book about plagiarism, but I desperately wanted to write this second novel and was trying to think whether I dared to start the novel. And I thought, no, if I get sick, I'll probably have two years left and I don't want to go out of the world with the two books half written. I'll stick with the book I'm working on now, the plagiarism book. And if I have to die, I will then at least have that book out in the world. And that was how one thought in those days. Even while at the same time I was in love with New York. I was in love with the little bit of literary progress I was making. My friends and I were having lives, we were having romance and so forth.

[A]

What was it like rereading Your diaries, to edit them and then publish them, because, like, you write historical novels. And what was the present to you when you were writing those journals? That's now the past, that's now history. That's an artifact of a turning point in history. So what was it like seeing your life as history?

[D]

Strange. It provoked feelings of embarrassment. One's diaries always do that, if they have any kind of, I think, authenticity to them. Tremendous feelings of gratitude that I had never gotten sick and that I was here to write all the books that came in between those diaries and today. I was struck, though, by the immediacy of them with editors at the New Yorker. There was some discussion at some point about my writing a retrospective essay about the time and simply quoting from the diaries, even quoting liberally from them, but situating them in a sort of retrospective point of view. And I argued against this because I thought if the diaries had any value at all, it was their immediacy, the sense that the person writing this did not know what was going to happen, did not know what it meant yet. And when I reread them after so many years, what struck me immediately was a kind of manic quality to them. There are entries where I am just absolutely slap happy. You know, I'm having my first author photograph taken, or I'm going to some literary party that I never would have expected to be invited to years before. And the next day all of that will come crashing down because there's been some terrible piece of AIDS news either in the newspapers or, you know, in my own world. Somebody I knew was sick. And it seemed to me at the time, and the diaries brought this back to me, that I was living in a world where it was always going to be impossible to be happy for very long, that there would be these short bursts, but this looming, terrible destructiveness was always going to be out there.

[A]

You know, just a little stray sentence in those diaries was about having a great view of Manhattan when you dined one day at Windows on the World, which was the restaurant on top of the World Trade center, and a few years later that would be totally demolished in the terrorist attack on 9 11. What was it like for you to reread that sentence and realize this, like, little factoid tucked away in your journal?

[D]

Yes, certain things.

[A]

Part of this, like, national nightmare.

[D]

Yes, these little things that jump out at you and that, you know, you never expected to see. And of course, at the time you're writing it, you don't think that you could ever reread this and have it mean Something completely different from what it appeared to mean to you as you actually wrote the sentence. There are all these things that, you know, one is forgotten. Sometimes the smallest things that you write, the smallest incidents, remarks that you heard, overheard, sometimes those are the things I found in a diary that evoke bigger things much more powerfully than if you had been writing about the big thing directly.

[A]

Yeah. During the period that your AIDS diaries cover, the period published in the New Yorker, your boyfriend at the time died of AIDS early in the epidemic. He was 31. You hadn't been seeing each other that long. Were you close enough where you felt like you were the one to take care of him? No.

[D]

I mean, I wouldn't say that, but it was a short and very rocky romance, and it, you know, had all of the difficulties that any romance can encounter. But at the end, when he was very sick throughout 1984 and he died in October of 1984, at the very end, I became very close to his mother and close, really to the rest of his family. And I remember the hospital and the harrowing nature of his illness that went on month after month. This was the time when if you visited somebody with AIDS in the hospital, they practically put you in a hazmat suit. You know, you were wearing masks and gloves and so forth. And nobody knew very much. And this was very early to have that. The gift to me was really his whole family, especially his mother, who remained my friends for decades. And I wound up having Thanksgiving every year with his mother. And I would bring my longtime partner, Bill, to New York. And again, all of life really is a novel. You just live it instead of writing it. But it always has its odd turns and its strange narrative arcs. But that was a particularly painful time, the time that Tom was still alive and suffering. And I have not really even been able to go back to that diary. The diaries that were excerpted in the New Yorker start in 1985. They run from 85 to 88. And I'm sort of living in the aftermath of that. And I'm probably going to do a book of these diaries for my publisher, Knopf, and I'm going to have to go back to the diaries when Tom was still alive. And that's going to be. That's going to be a hard task for me.

[A]

Did you visit him in the hospital, and were you afraid that if you did, you would contract aids? Because, as you said, people didn't know yet how it was spread?

[D]

I don't remember that fear in the hospital. I remember the fear of a fear that lasted for years, that I would contract it simply because of the things we had done together before. He was sick. But the atmosphere in the hospital was just dreadful. And there was almost a science fiction aspect to it, sort of themes or one of the plots, if you could use that word, to the diaries that were excerpted in the New Yorker. This is around 1986, 87 was my internal drama, wondering not just whether I was going to get sick or not, but should I have the test? The test was new in those days.

[A]

Yeah. You were terrified to have the test.

[D]

I was very frightened to have the test. I did not have the test until 1991. Point. There was really nothing they could do for you. So what was the point of knowing? You already knew how you could protect yourself from infection. You already knew how you could protect others from infection. And if you happened to have the virus, if you were sick, there was very little that they could do for you. Eventually, I mean, there was AZT was the first significant medication, but the side effects of it were absolutely horrific. And so I remember for years I opted for not knowing.

[A]

And what changed your mind in 1991 when you got tested?

[D]

Well, I was partnered by that point. And I felt that the likelihood that I was sick was pretty small by that point. It would have manifested itself already in one way or another. So I was, you know, able to do that. But even in those days, in the early 90s, you would get tested and you would wait for two weeks for the result as opposed to, you know, having a pinprick of blood taken from you today and getting the results within less than a minute.

[C]

Thomas Mallon speaking to Terry Gross in 2023. After a break, we'll continue their conversation. We'll also remember jazz singer Sheila Jordan, who died this week at age 96. And Justin Chang reviews the new Spike Lee film highest to Lowest. I'm David Biancooli, and this is FRESH air.

[A]

This week on Consider this, President Trump and Vladimir Putin, one on one. We're here at their summit in Alaska to spell out what the president says about those talks and what might actually happen next in Ukraine. Also on the show this week, the is rewriting the rules on global trade. What happens if other countries try that, too? You can listen each afternoon to Consider this from NPR stars. They're just like us. John Legend goes to cbs. Well, that's because he has his own skincare line.

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Into one of those stores.

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We had the end caps.

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Were you like, I don't Want this locked up? John Legend is one of many stars riding the celebrity branding wave. He tells us about it on the indicator from Planet Money. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[E]

On the next through line from NPR.

[A]

The man who saw a dangerous omission in the U.S. constitution and took it upon himself to fix it.

[D]

If something happened to a president who was still alive, the consequences for the country would have been enormous.

[A]

The 25th Amendment. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. How did it change your life when you knew that you were negative?

[D]

It made me feel that I could keep living and keep enjoying my life. There were so many things I loved about my life. Even during the worst days of the epidemic in New York, when there was nothing to be done for anybody like Tom or so many of my friends, I absolutely loved my life. I was very driven, I was very hardworking, I was ambitious. I wanted to be a writer. I felt I was getting a late start as a writer and suddenly things were happening. And I just remember the feeling that I'm not going to have to maybe until I'm much older. I'm not going to have to sit down with that diary again and tote up the pros and cons of trying to write a second book while I'm writing a first one, because I might not be around to finish them within a couple of years.

[A]

So you were so relieved to know that your death was not imminent. You're 71 now. Have your thoughts about aging been affected by how afraid you were that you were going to die in your 30s?

[D]

I think it would be impossible for those thoughts and feelings not to have been affected. I am so aware of how lucky I was. And I mean, I've enjoyed rude good health for almost my whole life. I'd like that to continue for a while. But I like to think that, you know, when things fall apart, that I'll be able to accept that with a certain amount of greater grace. Because I know that it could so easily. All of those intervening decades could so easily have been denied to me by life. And I don't know. That'll be a test of my character, I guess, when it comes.

[A]

Yeah. In your latest novel, up with the sun, one of the characters says, all my life I've loved the past as a place that can keep you safe from the present. An inert world, sleeping and finished that can't push you around. A place that your imagination can make as pretty as the two dimensional flats on a Broadway set. Is that a sentiment you share. And is that one of the reasons why you write historical fiction?

[D]

Yes, I think so. I think that's me speaking through Matt, my fictional pianist in up with the Sun. I think that's always been a theme in my books. I wrote a novel many years ago called Dewey Defeats Truman, which was all set during the summer and fall of 1948 in a little town in Michigan that had been Thomas E. Dewey's hometown. And there's an old man in that book named Horace Sinclair, and he expresses a lot of my preference for the past, the idea that the past is the present, perfected somehow put in amber, somehow an easier place to live in. He's the one who says, you know, some people when they pass a house, when they're walking on the street, they wonder who lives there. And he when he walks past the house, always wonder, always wonders who used to live there.

[A]

Thomas Mallon, a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much.

[D]

Same here. Thank you, Terry.

[C]

Thomas Mallon speaking to Terry Gross in 2023. His new book is called the Very Heart of New York Diaries 1983-1994. Coming up, we remember jazz singer Sheila Jordan, who died this week at age 96. This is FRESH AIR.

[A]

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[C]

To remember jazz singer Sheila Jordan, who had a devoted following among jazz fans, though she was less well known to wider audiences. She died mundy at the age of 96 and was recording and performing nearly until her death. Jazz critic Bob Blumenthal once wrote, quote, jordan unmistakably conceives of her voice as an instrument and she is a great musician, unquote. Jordan grew up in a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. When she was 14, she moved to Detroit, and after listening to a jukebox recording by saxophonist Charlie Parker, she decided instantly she had found her music, the music she wanted to sing. Not too many years later, she met Parker, who, after hearing her sing one of his songs, said, you have million dollar ears, kid. Eventually, she sat in with his band and became part of the jazz scene in Detroit in the 1940s. In the 1950s, she moved to New York, where she was part of a club and jazz session scene that included Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Max Roach. She also married Duke Jordan, the pianist in Parker's original quartet, and they had a daughter. But the marriage didn't last. In 1962, Sheila Jordan made her first recording with the George Russell Sextet, an avant garde rearrangement of the ballad you Are My Sunshine, a song Jordan had learned as a child.

[B]

You are.

[E]

My.

[B]

Sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are crazy.

[C]

The next year, Jordan became the first vocalist to record on the famous Blue Note label. Her album, Portrait of Sheila Jordan, was critically acclaimed. But she was a single mother, and it was difficult to support herself and her daughter with her music. She took a day job as a secretary in an advertising agency, where she worked until 1988. Jordan was influential on younger singers through her records, performances and workshops, and in 2012, she was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Before we Listen to Terry's 1981 interview with Sheila Jordan, let's listen to Sheila's singing on the song if youf Could See Me now from her debut album.

[B]

If you could see me now you'd know how blue I'd be. One look is all you need to know the mood I'm in. Perhaps then you'd realize I'm still in love with you. If you could see me now you'd find me being brave and trying awfully hard to make my tears play but that's quite impossible I'm still in love with you.

[A]

Pretty early on in your singing, I think you got turned on to Charlie Parker's music and got to meet him and sing with him, too, I believe.

[B]

Yes, I did. I sat in a lot with Bird. I met Bird in Detroit when I was a teenager. I moved from Pennsylvania with my grandmother and went to live with my mother for the three years or four years of high school. But at that time, they had a fantastic jukebox downstairs, and it had all of these great, great records, you know. But Bird was the one that did it for me. I heard this thing, I said, oh, who is this man? What is this music? I mean, I really felt that it was just there for Me, it was just planned that way, that I was going to hear this music. And I just got right into it. Well, of course, I couldn't move after that into anything else except jazz. Even though I'd been singing, never gave up singing and always had to sing. This was it for me. So after hearing these Bird records and finding out where music like this was heard, I had to be there, even if it was a matter of life and death, which in Detroit at that time, it was.

[A]

What do you mean?

[B]

Well, it was very prejudiced. And here I am, a young white girl trying to get to this music. So in order to get to that music, it was in black neighborhoods, and the police were very rough. I mean, we had the race riots there, which didn't help matters. And so I was sort of torn between this terrible racial tension and wanting to be near these people who did this music and not even thinking in terms of black, white, purple, green. Hey, I just wanted to be where this music was. So I suffered a lot from constantly being taken down to police stations, quizzed about what I was doing with these black people, and of course, that's not what they called them, and having to defend my relationship and my friendship with these wonderful people who taught me the art of jazz singing. I mean, they were my roots, all of these wonderful musicians and just people who were learning, like myself, like Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, I mean, Kenny Burrell. We all grew up together. We were kids and we were growing up, and we would have died for one another.

[A]

What was your way of interpreting what Parker was doing with her sworn into a vocal style?

[B]

Well, I started out singing with two young black guys who wrote a lot of words to Bird Heads, and I wanted to be part of their trio. I wanted to sing with them, and they accepted me. And we used to rehearse all the time. And that turned me on to more listening to what Bird was doing. But, of course, I had done that before I met them. I don't know. I just. As I said, I felt very drawn to Bird's music. And I could hear it. I could hear, hey, that's Embraceable, you know, or that's I Got Rhythm. But what does he do with the bridge? Or that's Honeysuckle Rose, but he plays another thing in the middle. I mean, I had very good ears and I could hear all that. I really. I didn't deliberately set out to learn Bird. I was drawn to it. I really felt that I was. There was a stronger force than myself pushing me into this need to learn this man's music to know all I could.

[A]

You came to New York 31 years ago? About 30.

[B]

31 years ago, in 1952.

[A]

52. What are some of the differences in the jazz scene in New York when you came and now?

[B]

Well, when I first came here, naturally, Bird was on the scene, and Monk and Bud Powell and Miles and Sonny was just coming up, and Jackie MacLean and I sort of hung out with them. It was exciting to go into these clubs, these 52nd street clubs, and hang out there and hear this. You know, you could go across the street and hear Bud, you could go across the street and hear Bird. I mean, Max, they were all on the scene. Oh, it was thrilling. And of course, for a kid, you know, at that time, especially if you were into jazz, like, I totally into jazz and dedicated to it. It was. It was very exciting.

[C]

Sheila Jordan speaking with Terry Gross in 1981. Seven years later, Jordan returned to Fresh Air to perform with bassist Harvey S. Here they are in the studio performing the song Body and Soul.

[B]

My heart is set Lonely for you I pine for you dear Only why haven't you seen it? I'm all for you but in soul I spend my days longing and I'm wondering why it's me you're wronging I tell you Meaning I'm all for you Body and soul.

[A]

When you were in Detroit and you were listening to Parker, he would invite you, and in New York, too, he would frequently invite you to sit in with the band. It occurs to me that really, a lot of the beboppers didn't have nearly as much respect for singers as they did for instrumentalists. Was that not the case with Parker?

[B]

With Bert, it wasn't the case, no. He was very, very open. And, you know, sometimes saying that I sat in with him sometimes turns into worked with him, which has never been true.

[A]

It turns into what?

[B]

Worked with him. Oh.

[A]

Oh, I see.

[B]

Yeah, they get that, you know, that sort of thing all turned around, which is not true. No, he was very, very supportive to me.

[A]

But did you feel you were up against that? The idea that a lot of the musicians didn't take singers as seriously as they took people who could play piano or bass or tenor?

[B]

I think maybe a little bit in Detroit at first, because everybody was out there trying to do his thing, and it got a little bit like that. But I must say that the jazz musicians have been wonderful with me and have always supported what I've done and always encouraged what I've been doing. But I know it was there, but it just didn't get too much to me.

[A]

I remember when I first found out that you had been working day job for years in an advertising agency.

[D]

All my life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I thought, like, how could this be possible? How could this singer possibly be spending her days typing? But for years, up until earlier this year, that's how you primarily made a living. Why did you have to do that?

[B]

Well, because I couldn't sing the music that I wanted to sing and I really wanted to keep the music the way I sing pure. And I didn't want to have to go out and hassle gigs that were weddings and, you know, bar mitzvahs and different things, club dates, top 40's because I can't do that. I don't do it well. There's people that do it so much better. So I didn't really mind that. And I couldn't take a chance on when I was going to work next because I didn't want to bring my daughter up the way I had been brought up. I wanted that financial security of food and rent being there.

[A]

Well, a funny thing happened earlier this year. You were laid off.

[B]

I was laid off. I was devastated. But I prayed that I would, hey, now that I'm almost 60, please let me sing more. And then one day I was called in after 21 years at this particular place and told, well, we're merging and we're getting rid of the department. Do you know, I really, I really was devastated. And then I thought, well, be careful what you pray for. You might get it. And I've been working ever since in music.

[A]

Well, this has freed up time for you to do more concerts.

[B]

That's fantastic. I don't know how I ever did it before. Sang and work the day job.

[C]

Sheila Jordan visited the studio with bassist Harvey S. During an interview with Terry Gross in 1988. The influential jazz singer died Monday. She was 96 years old. This fall, the Blue Note label plans to reissue her debut album, Portrait of Sheila. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new Spike Lee film highest to Lowest. This is FRESH air.

[A]

I'm Rachel Martin, host of Wildcard from npr. I've spent years interviewing all kinds of people, and I've realized there are ideas that we all think about but don't.

[E]

Talk about very much.

[A]

So I made a shortcut, a deck of cards with questions that anyone can answer, questions that go deep into the.

[B]

Experiences that shape us.

[A]

Listen to the Wild Card podcast only from NPR. Pop Culture Happy Hour. NPR's Easy, Breezy Laid back pop culture podcast has brought you the best in culture for the past 15 years.

[E]

That means we spent the last 15 years talking about what exactly bad reality.

[A]

TV actually good Marvel movies Actually Awful.

[E]

Marvel movies Reboots Pop music Prestige dramas Netflix swap?

[A]

That's 15 years of buzzy pop culture chit chat. And here's to many more. With you along for the ride. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get.

[C]

Your podcasts In Spike Lee's new crime drama Highest to Lowest, Denzel Washington plays a New York City music mogul whose teenage son becomes the target of a kidnapping plot. The movie is a remake of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa Classic High and Low. Highest to Lowest opens in theaters this week and begins streaming on Apple TV plus September 5th. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

[E]

Back in 2013, Spike Lee directed a disappointing American remake of the cult beloved Korean thriller Oldboy. He later all but disowned the movie, claiming it had been edited down against his wishes. To date, Oldboy is the only one of his films that doesn't bear the signature words a Spike Lee joint. Now, more than a decade later, Lee has taken on a far greater Asian classic, Akira Kurosawa's masterful 1963 film High and Low. The remake is called Highest to Lowest, and it's a Spike Lee joint through and through, a dazzling crime drama that boldly confronts issues of race and class, art and commerce, all set in a modern day New York that pulses with music, color and life. It's blunt, a little messy, and altogether glorious, and it couldn't be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker. Kurosawa's High and Low was itself adapted from Ed McBain's 1959 novel King's Ransom, and so there's a full circle logic to bringing the story back to the U.S. denzel Washington gives one of his best recent performances as David King, a music executive known for having the best ears in the business. David lives in a swanky Manhattan penthouse with his wife Pam, played by Il Finesh Hadera, and their teenage son Trey, played by Aubrey Joseph. One day, David gets a call from someone who says he's kidnapped Trey and demands a ransom of $17.5 million. As a police investigation gets underway, it's soon revealed that Trey is actually safe. His best friend Kyle was snatched by mistake. Nonetheless, the kidnapper demands the same amount for Kyle's safe return, placing David in a tricky position. If he pays the ransom, it will ruin him, jeopardizing a major business deal involving the company he founded, stackenhates records. If he doesn't pay, he has to live with his guilt forever. Especially since Kyle's father, Paul, an excellent Jeffrey Wright, is his driver and his oldest friend. In this scene, Paul begs David to pay the ransom and save his son's life. Listen, listen, beloved.

[D]

I see all you do and I can never stop thanking you for what.

[A]

You did for me.

[D]

But I never really asked you for anything. You never had to. That's right. That's right. You gave to me freely. I love you for that.

[E]

Right now I'm asking you for everything. I'm asking you for my life now.

[D]

You ain't asking me for life right now. You're asking me for $17.5 million. That's all people do is ask me for stuff. Can you help me? Hey, my son, can you give me. They just want me to pay. Stack hits.

[C]

Pay for this.

[D]

Give me that, give me this. Put this on top of that, on.

[E]

Top of this, on top of that, on top of this, on top of.

[D]

That, and this and that.

[E]

As a crime saga, Highest to Lowest is solid, but the genre mechanics are less interesting than the underlying ideas. And if the dialogue in Alan Fox's script hits a few clunky notes early on, that's because it takes time to set up those ideas and maneuver them into position. As in all his best work, Lee gives the drama a rich personal dimension. At 68, he's made a film about the struggle to stay relevant with age and to go on making meaningful art in a world that's often hostile to it. Even before the kidnapping, David feels uncertain about his place in an entertainment industry where talent and creativity have taken a backseat to the whims of AI and social media. Race, too, is a factor, as it often is in Lee's movies. Fame and fortune represent something of a double edged sword for a black man in the music biz, where commercial success can become shorthand for the establishment or sellout. One of the movie's best performances comes from the charismatic hip hop artist ASAP Rocky, who as an up and coming rapper named Young Felony, is the ferocious voice of a new generation of black musicians eager to work with and perhaps dethrone the David kings of the world. As with Kurosawa's High and Low, the title of highest to lowest is a clear metaphor for class difference. And Lee, as always, delights in pointing out and amping up tensions between his characters. You can't help but notice how politely the cops treat the rich and famous David versus how shabbily they treat Paul, who's poor Muslim and a nobody by comparison. But the film's class critique runs deeper still. It's built into the very structure of the story. In order to pay the ransom and hopefully catch the kidnapper, David must leave behind his life of high altitude luxury, descend to street level. And what he rediscovers in the process is the glory of New York, a city that Lee knows and loves as deeply as any filmmaker working today. The ransom scene is one of the most exuberant set pieces in any recent Lee movie, and it pays homage not just to the city, but to the thrilling and irrepressible cultural richness of America itself. Lee stages the sequence brilliantly aboard an elevated train on a hot summer day, specifically Puerto Rican Day. And so when the action spills out into the traffic below, the plot collides with a massive parade, complete with a joyous performance by the Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra. Palmieri himself died earlier this month at the age of 88, and it's nice to see his great legacy saluted in this wonderfully entertaining movie.

[C]

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed Spike Lee's new film Highest to Lowest on Monday's Fresh air. Bowen Yang. He's nominated for an Emmy for his performances on Saturday Night Live. He'll talk about working on the show, his obsession with pop culture, which is why he co hosts the podcast Las Culturistas, and the contrast between his life and the lives of his parents, who emigrated from China. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shurok. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Deanna Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seabe Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bean.

[D]

Pool.

[A]

There's a lot of news happening. You want to understand it better, but let's be honest, you don't want it to be your entire life either. Well, that's sort of like our show Here and Now Anytime. Every weekday on our podcast, we talk to people all over the country about everything from political analysis to climate resilience, video games.

[E]

We even talk about dumpster diving on this show.

[A]

Check out Here and Now Anytime. A daily podcast from NPR and wbur. Materials scientist Anna Maria Coglita is creating tech that replicates skin and simulates touch. A prosthetic hand would feel if the patient is holding a hotel cup or a cold bottle of beer. Ideas about our skin and how we use it to interact with the world. That's on NPR's TED Radio Hour. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.