Tell Me More

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CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. Coming up, we speak with a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who just lost his job after 44 years at the Chicago Sun-Times. But first, speaking of jobs, the latest figures are out from the Department of Labor. The U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs last month. That's the good news. The bad news is the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent. How does that math work? We're going to talk about that.

The U.S. considers jazz a national treasure. But its core audience has been gradually shrinking — and aging.

Grammy-winning bassist Christian McBride has been trying to stem that tide by looking at the form in a different way. He tells Tell Me More guest host Celeste Headlee where he thinks jazz should go to reach its audience, and offers his personal insight with regard to how artists should take it from here.

African-Americans fought for years to enter professions that were dominated by white people, like medicine, business and law. Now, experts say some of those gains have leveled off since the recession. Guest host Celeste Headlee speaks with The New York Times' Nelson Schwartz, and lawyer Lisa Tatum, about why minorities struggle to gain ground in elite professions.

Teen Elaine Vilorio spent years trying to make sense of her racial identity. She describes herself as Hispanic, but other people see her as black. Vilorio speaks to guest host Celeste Headlee about her recent HuffPost Teen blog, 'Coming Out As Black.'

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Finally, you know those movies you pull out time and time again when you can't figure out what you want to watch. Our colleagues at Weekends on All Things Considered regularly ask filmmakers and actors about the movies they never get tired of watching. Today, rapper and actor Common tells us about one of his favorites.

COMMON: Peace, this is Common and I'm a artist, an actor. And the movie I've seen a million times is "Coming to America," directed by John Landis, starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, and James Earl Jones.

Mayor Michael Bell hopes Chinese investment will help revive his blue-collar city. He helped broker a deal to sell a chunk of Toledo's waterfront to Chinese investors. Host Michel Martin and Mayor Bell discuss investments with China and what he thinks President Obama and China President Xi Jinping can accomplish during their U.S. visit.

Box office receipts in China reached new highs last year, and American filmmakers want to tap into that market. Host Michel Martin speaks with Los Angeles Times reporter John Horn, about the growth of the Chinese movie market, and how Hollywood plans to cash in.