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Pianist Hazel Scott was one of the few artists who successfully integrated jazz and classical music. For 1955's Relaxed Piano Sounds, Scott teamed with the two men who owned Debut Records — drummer Max Roach and bassist Charles Mingus — for one of the best piano trios ever recorded.

George Shearing is perhaps best known as the inventor of a unique quintet sound that combined piano, vibraphone, electric guitar, bass, and drums. He also influenced the development of small-combo Afro-Cuban jazz. This album focuses on Shearing's MGM period, when he was at the height of his popularity.

Oliver Nelson began his career playing with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra and St. Louis big bands. In a 1961 jam session, Nelson was joined by Eric Dolphy, Roy Haynes, Bill Evans, Oliver Nelson, Paul Chambers and Freddie Hubbard. The result was one of the great classics of the blues, The Blues and the Abstract Truth.

As jazz critic Murray Horwitz puts it, "Just because a CD is a survey of Christmas music, it doesn't mean that it can't have great music." The all-star lineup of the 1990 album, Jingle Bell Jazz, includes Dexter Gordon, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock.

Scott talks about her career in jazz and what inspired her latest album, Nightcap. Hear Scott and NPR's Tony Cox.

Laws aren't the only thing Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch writes — he's also a talented songwriter who pens gospel hymns, love ballads, country tunes. A few of his songs have even made it into move soundtracks. Hatch talks with NPR's Tavis Smiley about songwriting and discusses his new holiday CD, Christmas Eve.

Music critic Milo Miles looks at the career of reggae greats Toots Hibbert and his band, the Maytals. The group's recent re-issues are Time Tough, Funky Kingston (Island Records) and Monkey Man (Trojan Records).

Host Liane Hansen speaks with Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger, co-founders of the pop band Fountains of Wayne. Their new CD, Welcome Interstate Managers, is on S-Curve Records.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Welcome Interstate Managers the new CD by Fountains of Wayne.

He's got a new album out called The Three Pickers, and it features Skaggs playing along with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson (also available on DVD). Skaggs started performing as a young child. He was considered a prodigy. His first number one single was "Crying My Heart Out Over You" in 1981, and he continued to have a string of hits throughout the eighties. But he fell out of favor for most of the next decade, coming back in 1997 with Bluegrass Rules! recorded with his backup band Kentucky Thunder. Skaggs has won many Grammy and Country Music Association awards.