Search results for

Music critic Christian Bordal reviews the new album by the New York indie-rock trio Girl Friday. Their new self-released CD is Swimmer.

Nostalgia tends to dominate our respective listening habits. This year saw the excavation of various titles from the annals of time.

NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Nate Chinen of member station WBGO and Jazz Night in America about three rediscovered jazz albums from Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Stan Getz.

The cliché about a catchy song: "It's got a good beat, you can dance to it." But things get more complicated when the beat is all there is to it. Two recent albums put the percussion front and center: Batterie, from Loop 2.4.3, and Global Drum Project, with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and tabla master Zakir Hussain.

After establishing himself as an innovative jazz instrumentalist, Louis Armstrong was given a chance to sing — and turned the jazz world upside down. His singing voice would become one of the world's most recognized and enjoyed in jazz and popular music.

From an intriguing East meets West merger to Vivaldi played with velocity, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and host Jacki Lyden explore a wide range of new classical releases.

Over a 50 year career and a string of fascinating orchestral works, the Polish composer continued to uncover new paths of musical expression.

With inspiration cast wide, from Thelonious Monk and Sam Cooke to Robert Wyatt, Saturn Sings is an abstract cliff-dive. But in the midst of Mary Halvorson's mind-bogglingly knotty guitar work, there's a backbone of smart jazz composition that reaches deeper. Hear the full album until its release on Oct. 5.

There has been no shortage of books on motherhood, but daddy diaries are a new phenomenon. Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs raises the bar, with 39 beautifully written essays that trace his influences and celebrate his roles as husband, father and son.

Page after page of terrible handwriting is reproduced in faithful facsimile — covering forthcoming gigs, favorite songs, prophecies of fame, janitorial wages and the firing of drummers.