Music

Pharoah Sanders and Floating Points in the studio.

Music & Culture

Join NPR Music's Listening Party For Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders' 'Promises'

11:02am March 22, 2021

by Lars Gotrich

NPR Music will host an online listening party for the dreamlike collaboration, featuring a live conversation hosted by WBGO's Nate Chinen with musicians James Brandon Lewis and Val Jeanty.

Leila Cobo's New Book Takes A Look At The Latin Music We Can't Get Enough Of

8:01am March 21, 2021

NPR's Felix Contreras speaks with Leila Cobo about her new book, Decoding Despacito, and the commercial history of Latin music in the U.S.

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Sting's New Album Is All About Collaboration

8:01am March 21, 2021

Sting is releasing a collection of duets — some old, some new. He talks with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro about the importance of musical collaboration, despite the pandemic.

Jason Burt, of Clarksburg, Calif., got help from Grammy award-winning sound engineers to digitize and prepare recordings of his grandfather, Richard Burt, playing trumpet in the 746th Far East Air Force Band.

Music & Culture

A Grandson's Gift — A Spotlight — For His Grandfather's WWII Band

9:58am March 20, 2021

by Taylor Haney

The first time Jason Burt listened to his grandfather's World War II Army Air Force Band recordings after finding them in his attic, "it was like my own private concert with my grandpa."

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Music & Culture

Hear Fleet Foxes Perform 4 Songs From 'Shore'

2:57pm March 19, 2021

Robin Pecknold, frontperson for Fleet Foxes, talks about his decision to put out an album in the middle of the pandemic when "putting out an album" comes with a lot of new challenges.

Aimee Mann is one of the most acclaimed voices in contemporary American songwriting.

Music & Culture

KCRW Presents Lockdown Listening: Aimee Mann

2:52pm March 19, 2021

Judee Sill, Steely Dan, Paul McCartney and more are featured in her Lockdown Listening playlist.

Courtney B. Vance, left, as C.L. Franklin, with Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin, in a scene from the miniseries Genius: Aretha set at The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church.

Aretha Franklin Shines In, And Despite, The New Miniseries, 'Genius: Aretha'

2:23pm March 19, 2021

by Eric Deggans

Debuting this Sunday on National Geographic, Genius: Aretha looks at the Queen of Soul's life through the lens of a television biopic.

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Mavis Staples performed at the 2011 Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, Scotland.

Music & Culture

Mavis Staples On Mountain Stage

2:15pm March 19, 2021

by Dave Lavender

Listen to the soul-gospel legend perform at the 2011 Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow.

Sasha Velour stars in The Island We Made, an opera composed by Angélica Negrón and filmed in a mid-century Staten Island house.

'The Island We Made': Lip-Sync Opera And High Drag Sing An Ode To Mothers

1:06pm March 19, 2021

Composer Angélica Negrón collaborates with 'RuPaul's Drag Race' winner Sasha Velour on a 10-minute film featuring original music, in a project for Opera Philadelphia.

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Paul Jackson performs with the Headhunters at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1998.

Music & Culture

Paul Jackson, Headhunters Bassist Who Played With Herbie Hancock, Dies At 73

11:25am March 19, 2021

by Brad Farberman

Best known for his work on Hancock's blockbuster 1973 album Head Hunters, Paul Jackson was a bassist who found his musical identity between jazz and funk.