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He is now hailed as one of America's greatest musical eminences. But Duke Ellington's early career is the story of how a bright yet unremarkable teenage boy became a musical pioneer, an accomplished composer and a leader of the world's most popular big band.

By the 1930s, Duke Ellington had already risen to the top of the jazz world. What was to come proved that his band occupied its own musical universe: Decade after decade, Ellington's ever-talented orchestra rode incredible waves of creativity.

When he was only 25, the word "legend" was already being used to describe Stanley Clarke. Now, he's a king of the acoustic and electric jazz worlds, having won every major award available to a bass player. Hear an interview with the jazz/fusion innovator.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the new DVD of The Threepenny Opera. G.W. Pabst's 1931 film version of the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill musical, with Weill's wife Lotte Lenya as Jenny, is newly out from the Criterion Collection.

Offered up with confidence and honesty, k.d. lang's deeply personal narratives invite listeners into an intimate world. Her glorious voice fuses country, jazz, and even Brazilian rhythms, and in a session on World Cafe, she plays songs from her new album, Watershed.

Composer Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere" is a piece of choral music so powerful that a 17th-century pope decreed it could be played only during the week leading to Easter — and then only in the Sistine Chapel.

Montero has had a terrific year as a classical pianist: making her debut with the New York Philharmonic, releasing two solo CDs, getting profiled on 60 Minutes. Montero returns for another edition of "Sing It and Wing It," in which she improvises around a song sung by a guest on the phone.

World Cafe features daily interviews and live in-studio performances from seasoned music veterans and new sensations, in genres ranging from rock to blues to folk to alternative country and beyond. From NPR station WXPN, host David Dye chooses his favorite albums of 2006.

Musician David Was says the Texas tenor sax player Ornette Coleman is sort of the Samuel Beckett of jazz — misunderstood, maligned and, after almost five decades since his debut, still making news. A new Coleman CD collection has been released called To Whom Who Keeps a Record.

Given the proliferation of year-end Top 10 lists, it seems natural that Shadow Classics — which gives shelter to under-appreciated music — would feature its own list of 2006 recordings likely to become Shadow Classics down the line. Don't let these gems go unnoticed.