AP News, August 17th, 2007
Beryl Denzer Hines
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Beryl Denzer Hines, a Cold War journalist who landed the first U.S. television interview with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov among other scoops, has died. She was 84.
Hines died July 30 at a Washington nursing home of complications from cancer, her son, Peter Denzer, said.
As an associate producer for the CBS program "Face the Nation" from 1954 to 1957, Hines sometimes went to great lengths to get notable guests.
In 1955, "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press" were in a scramble to get the first U.S. TV interview with Molotov. The networks spent months extending invitations to the Kremlin, the Russian Embassy and the Russian headquarters of the United Nations.
Hines went a step further. She managed to get a ride on a Coast Guard cutter that met a big liner outside New York Harbor, Newsweek reported. "She climbed aboard the Elizabeth and spent a sleepless night outside Molotov's stateroom, where she finally got a Tass correspondent to translate a final CBS invitation to Molotov," according to the 1955 article.
Hines also got the first interview with U.S. Rep. Alvin M. Bentley, R-Mich., after he and four other congressman were shot on the House floor by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1954. Three years later she played a role in landing the first unrestricted interview by American correspondents with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
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Max Roach
NEW YORK (AP) _ Max Roach, the master percussionist whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, has died. He was 83.
Roach died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness. No additional details were available, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records.
Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Roach was elected to the Downbeat magazine Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Grammy Hall of Fame 15 years later. In 1988, he became the first jazz musician ever honored with a MacArthur Fellowship _ receiving a $372,000 "genius grant."
The creatively restless Roach, who debuted with Ellington's band as a self-taught 16-year-old drummer in 1940, challenged his listeners and himself by making music that connected the jazz of the pre-World War II era with the beats of the hip-hop generation.
His place in the pantheon of jazz greats long since secured, Roach collaborated with drummers from around the world, with a string quartet that featured daughter Maxine, and with rapper Fab Five Freddy.
The North Carolina native was born on Jan. 10, 1924, and moved to Brooklyn with his family four years later. A player piano left by the previous tenants gave Roach his musical introduction.
But he was looking for another instrument while singing with the children's choir at the Concord Baptist Church. Roach found a snare drum, and was quickly hooked. His father gave the eighth-grader his first set of drums, and Roach was drumming professionally while still in high school.
