Acclaimed jazz musician Christian McBride has made hundreds of recordings, won eight Grammy Awards and led numerous ensembles, including the Christian McBride Band, the Christian McBride Big Band, Inside Straight and the New Jawn. The versatile bassist has collaborated with jazz legends Herbie Hancock, Ray Brown, Freddie Hubbard, and Chick Corea, as well as artists outside the genre like Sting, Paul McCartney and Celine Dion. Known as a child prodigy, McBride performed with Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis while still in high school, where he attended Philadelphia’s High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, alongside future members of The Roots and Boyz II Men. McBride now serves as the artistic director of the Newport Jazz Festival and the educational foundation Jazz House Kids. Christian McBride speaks with Alec about his influences, leaving Juilliard early to go on the road, and how being a working musician is similar to being a professional athlete. For information on upcoming tour dates, go to christianmcbride.com.   You can find a playlist featuring Alec’s favorite Christian McBride songs here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our Here’s the Thing Summer Staff Picks series continues, featuring our favorite episodes from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec’s 2021 interview with U.S. Representative Katie Porter. In 2018, Porter was the first Democrat ever to be elected in her traditionally conservative Orange County, California district. Prompted to run by Trump’s 2016 win, Porter quickly made a name for herself with her tough questioning of CEOs and administration officials, often using a whiteboard to lay out the facts. Katie Porter’s no-nonsense approach comes in part from her upbringing in Iowa. During the farm crisis of the 1980s, she saw first-hand how her father, a third generation farmer turned community loan officer, helped to support their neighbors. She went on to study bankruptcy law under Elizabeth Warren at Harvard Law School and become a consumer protection attorney and a law professor. A single mom to three school-age children, Katie Porter tells Alec people often have often underestimated her - at their own peril.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our staff picks continue at “Here’s The Thing,” where throughout the summer, members of our team select their favorite interviews from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec’s 2021 interview with Hans Zimmer, one of the most celebrated and successful film composers of all time. The German-born Zimmer has scored more than 150 movies including “Gladiator,” “Hannibal,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “The Last Samurai,” and “The Thin Red Line,” earning him two Academy Awards (“Dune” and “The Lion King”) and four Grammys. His collaboration with director Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Interstellar,” “Dunkirk,” and “Inception,”) has become one of the most celebrated partnerships in movie history. Zimmer shares with Alec how he knew music was his path, how his partnership with Nolan began, and how his scores seek to enrich a film’s emotional journey.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are continuing our summer tradition at “Here’s The Thing” where members of the staff select their favorite interviews from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec Baldwin’s conversations with two amazing women in entertainment, Lena Dunham and Carol Burnett. Lena Dunham, creator and star of the ground-breaking “Girls” and writer/director of the recent film “Catherine Called Birdy,” spoke with Alec in 2013 about making her first film, “Tiny Furniture,” how her work evolved following its success and what it's like to play a version of herself. In 2015, Alec spoke with comedian and actress Carol Burnett about making 11-seasons of the Emmy-winning “The Carol Burnett Show,” navigating being a woman in show business in the 60s and creating her incredible performance as Miss Hannigan in “Annie.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Against the backdrop of soaring stock prices and multi-million dollar executive packages, the labor movement is undergoing a resurgence. A Starbucks location in Buffalo, NY became the first within the coffee chain to unionize in 2021, and since then, more than 330 stores in 39 states have followed suit – with more elections underway. All the while, the Starbucks corporation was engaging in controversial labor-busting practices: the National Labor Relations Board found that Starbucks violated federal labor laws and a federal judge ruled that Starbucks engaged in “egregious and widespread misconduct.” Guest Gianna Reeve is an employee of the Camp Road Starbucks in the Buffalo area – and an organizer with Starbucks Workers United. Reeve joins Alec Baldwin to share her experience at one of the first stores to organize, the conditions that led to the unionization efforts, and what the Starbucks Workers United organization hopes for the future.    Gianna Reeve is a featured participant in the upcoming documentary “The Baristas vs The Billionaire.” To learn more, visit: www.baristasvsbillionaire.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This past year marked the 75th Anniversary of the Actors Studio, the nonprofit organization that has shared “truth in acting” with decades of film, television and theater professionals. This episode is the next in our series celebrating some of those responsible for the studio’s success. Guests Roberta and Katherine Wallach are the daughters of stage and screen stars Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach. Jackson and Wallach met during a 1946 production of the Tennessee Williams’ play, “This Property Is Condemned.” They became early members of the Actors Studio and would go on to perform together in film, tv and theater for decades. Roberta and Katherine are actors in their own right, members of the studio, and sit on its Board of Directors. Katherine Wallach has appeared in “Goodfellas,” “The King of Comedy” and “Gangs of New York” and also uses her creative talents as a jewelry designer. Roberta Wallach is a Drama-Desk nominee and began her film career while still in high school. The siblings share what it was like growing up around acting royalty, their father’s perspective on them going into the family business and their thoughts on their parents' enduring legacy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rafael Payare, or “Rafa,” as he’s known more informally, is the energetic, electrifying and unmistakable conductor that is taking the classical world by storm. Payare currently serves as Music Director of both the Montreal and San Diego Symphonies. A graduate of Venezuela’s famed El Sistema program, Payare first attracted attention as winner of Denmark’s Malko International Conducting Competition in 2012. Since then, he’s brought his exuberance and elegance to conduct preeminent orchestras across the globe, from London to New York, Munich to Boston, and Stockholm to Chicago. Rafael Payare speaks with Alec about the many important conductors he’s learned from, how he approaches putting together a music program, and why finding the right chemistry with an orchestra is like falling in love.    The following compositions are featured in this episode: Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 5 with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, conducted by Rafael Payare, provided courtesy of Pentatone. You can find the album here.  Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103 “The Year 1905,” conducted by Rafael Payare, courtesy of the San Diego Symphony on Platoon. You can find the album here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filmmaker Ryan White discusses his diverse range of unique documentaries, including 'The Keepers,' 'The Case Against 8,' 'Good Night Oppy,' and 'Assassins.' He also talks about his latest project 'Pamela, A Love Story,' which explores the life of Pamela Anderson. Ryan White shares insights into filming with Anderson, the impact of the documentary, and how he balances light and dark in his projects.

There is an important conversation happening regarding the rapidly-changing world of artificial intelligence and how it will affect us.  Alec speaks with two leaders in the tech community that have worked on the systems integral to today’s A.I. revolution. Blake Lemoine is a computer scientist and former senior software engineer at Google. He was working on their Responsible A.I. team when he went public with his claim that the A.I. was sentient. Lemoine was subsequently fired and now champions accountability and transparency in the tech sector. Jay LeBoeuf is an executive, entrepreneur, and educator in the music and creative technology industries. He is the Head Of Business & Corporate Development at Descript, an audio and video editing platform that uses “voice cloning” technology. Alec speaks with LeBoeuf and Lemoine about the many applications of A.I., what dangers we need to be aware of and what is to come next in this transformative space. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, we lost the great singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. In honor of his passing, Alec is sharing his 2016 conversation with the musician, one of his favorites in the history of the podcast: Over the course of a career that has lasted more than half a century, Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot achieved global stardom and exceptional influence. Bob Dylan’s a fan—he's said, “I can’t think of any [Lightfoot songs] I don’t like.” These songs—“Beautiful,” “Sundown,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” and many others—have been treasured by generations of popular musicians and listeners around the world. But Gordon Lightfoot was just one of many aspirants who moved to Toronto in the early 1960s to try their hand in the burgeoning folk music scene there. Lightfoot tells Alec about fitting a feeling to a melody, why he owes his first hit record to an exec's girlfriend, and how he wrote "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by pulling lines straight from the newspaper.  You can listen to all of the music from this episode and other selections from Gordon Lightfoot in a curated playlist here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.