Benny Golson is an NEA Jazz Master, composer, arranger, and saxophonist. After helping Art Blakey revamp his regime with the Jazz Messengers, he co-founded Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer. He has composed not only jazz standards, including "Killer Joe" and "Along Came Betty, " but also music for films and television, including It Takes a Thief and M*A*S*H. ¿Jim Merod¿has recorded a veritable "who's who" of jazz greats under his BluePort Jazz label. He is a Professor of Literature and Humanities¿at Soka University, who has also taught at Cornell, Brown, Brandeis, Stanford, and UCLA. He is¿the author of¿The Political Responsibility of the Critic¿and¿the editor of Jazz as a Cultural Archive, a special issue of the journal boundary 2.