UMASS AMHERST

We've all been told that expectant mothers should avoid alcohol and smoking during, and preferably before, pregnancy. Well, what about expectant fathers? 

Parents with the kids, workers on a lunch break, astronomy buffs getting their fix. Across the region on Monday afternoon, people stared at the sky to see a sun partially obscured by the moon.

This edition of Jazz Beat presents an interview conducted by guest host Peter Sokolowski with Doc Severinsen, famous as Johnny Carson’s bandleader on The Tonight Show and a virtuoso trumpet player who still practices every day. This conversation took place before a live audience in the recital hall at UMASS Amherst, and covers subjects from Doc’s early career touring with big bands, his work as a studio musician in New York, and his television days.

In this episode, Allyson Morin speaks with NEPR Media Lab and Community Journalism students Kimberly Cruz and Milton Sagardia. Allyson and Milton discuss Milton's fear that budget cuts will end the Gear Up Program while Allyson and Kim explore how language barriers erode the mother-daughter relationship.

For birds, this time of year, it's all about the music.

But some birds have a different take on song. Rather than singers, they're percussionists.

Every spring, like clockwork, I wake up to an insistent, rhythmic sound. It's a woodpecker tapping a tree with its beak. It sounds to me like a big bird. But every time I gaze up, I can't find it.

Ornithologist Don Kroodsma, a retired UMass biology professor, says it's probably a Downy woodpecker, the smallest around here.