Saxophonist Tony Malaby, unlucky at the beginning of the pandemic after catching a very early case of the virus — the subsequent isolation imposed on his playing led him to a unique solution.
Songs Of Disappearance is an entire album of calls from endangered Australian birds. Last month, it briefly perched at No. 3 on the country's top 50 albums chart – ahead of Taylor Swift.
Boldly going where few gay men of color have been allowed to go before, Lil Nas X won the year by joyfully violating cultural taboos and exploiting media far more than it was able to exploit him.
The new documentary Get Back, cut from 50-year-old footage of Beatles recording sessions by director Peter Jackson, offers a chance to look at one moment when the myth of the "band guy" took shape.
Both Terence Blanchard and Wayne Shorter realized long-held dreams: they both premiered operas. But more than that, they crumbled walls that have long separated musical genres and communities.
With her ferocious voice and a cutting sense of humor, singer and guitarist Sale — who died in September — helped Delta 5 craft a high-voltage sound that still rings true today.
Forget the diva stereotype: Opera careers are tough, and often strict. But as concert halls reopen after months of shutdown, more than a few singers are showing newfound creativity.
A critic whose writing was nearly music itself, Greg Tate — who died this week at 64 — influenced generations of writers. His colleagues, peers and followers offer a guide to his essential works.
Nesmith rose to fame as one of the Pre-Fab Four — but he had a long and influential career after the Monkees. He helped invent the format that became MTV, and produced the cult film Repo Man.
This year's best hip-hop — including Westside Gunn, Mach-Hommy and Moor Mother — comes from death and defiance, erotic power and provocation, Black joy and pain — and that's just the shortlist.
The pair took a close look at the subtexts of Euripides' sad, epic tale of Iphigenia — agency, testosterone, violence, faith — and, through a suite of new music, hold them up to the light.
From Dijon and Figmore to Mereba and Cleo Sol, the best R&B albums of the year were born out of reshaped perspectives in the face of the post-pandemic facade we're now calling reality.
At the turn of the millennium, Radiohead turned creeping melancholy and desolation into two albums that changed the band's career. Two decades later, maybe we've caught up to their prophetic vision.
An arthritis diagnosis means the latest album by the Bay Area band The Dodos is likely its last. It is a striking reminder of the oft-overlooked physical strains of music careers.
To celebrate their 50-year anniversary, we trace the history and legacy of the independent jazz record label Strata-East founded by trumpeter Charles Tolliver and the late pianist Stanley Cowell.
A group of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students realized there was no children's book about the composer Florence Price. So they wrote, illustrated and published their own.
Think of the best songs of 2021 as a playlist catering to the most basic human urges. Within it, booties were called, muffins were buttered and bloody revenge was contemplated. It was quite a year.
