Cruz remains matchless in meeting the pain of exile and immigration with as full and joyous a song as she sang. Hear a playlist of her best songs, plus music by the artists she inspired.
Whatever your relationship with Journey's 1981 hit, a perseverance anthem that has itself persevered, there is no escaping the longing it evokes for youth, love and a chance at greatness.
Before settling in Harlem, Mary Lou Williams traveled the country playing with big bands. The road shaped her sound, and her theory of black music as "the greatest and only true art in the world."
At this year's Monterey Jazz Festival, drummer Allison Miller and bassist Derrick Hodge will pay tribute to Williams, revisiting her work from the 1960s and '70s with imaginative instrumentation.
From the outside, Williams' home looked like a typical Harlem brownstone. But inside, a generation of young artists etched out a radical agenda that would shift the music world off its axis.
Williams was known as "the lady who swings the band" thanks to her mastery of jazz's unique approach to rhythm. Watch jazz pianist Helen Sung explain what swing is and demonstrate how to do it.
In 1954, after several draining decades as a jazz composer, performer and mentor, Mary Lou Williams quit. When she returned, she claimed her true power as one of jazz's fiercest advocates.
Sampa The Great has followed a long — literally, as in criss-crossing the world — road on her way to developing and refining a singular, stunning voice. "Now, I'm like, let's go," she tells NPR Music.
In jazz, arranging — designing parts to fit together and creating new spins on familiar songs — is often unglamorous. But Williams' incomparable success as an arranger only further proves her genius.
In the late '60s, young people were listening to soul music — so Fitzgerald started incorporating soul idioms into her concerts. One particular performance in 1968 shows how much she learned from it.
Ella Fitzgerald's talent for vocal improvisation made her one of the most important singers of all time. Watch Jazzmeia Horn explain what scat singing is and demonstrate Fitzgerald's trademark skill.
"I know I'm no glamour girl," Fitzgerald reportedly once said. But generations of fans inspired by her elegant style over the years, including writer Holly Gleason, beg to differ.
Hold music is camouflaged sound — it needs to obviously exist, while also barely doing so. Small wonder, then, that its biggest "hit" does none of that.
Over a decade, the Los Angeles-based singer has built a career — one that peaks on her new album — and a musical identity on the idea that greatness doesn't have to be emotionally tidy.
Critics, scholars and fans are often caught up in the idea of an ideal black sound, using vocal tone to measure racial identity. What becomes of the black female singer who defies this categorization?
In the 1970s, Fitzgerald became the face (and glass-shattering voice) of Memorex tapes. It fueled a career revival that extended her relevance and positioned her to pass the torch to a new generation.
The famous contralto made a practice of amplifying black artists, especially black women artists, as seen through her collaborations with composer Florence B. Price.
Anderson was an early inspiration for scholar Shana Redmond, who explores the places she still feels the diva's presence: an inscrutable photo, a scrap of silent film, a concert borne on her legacy.
The coat Anderson wore at her iconic 1939 Lincoln Memorial performance connects her with a legacy of black women performers, from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé, who have used fur to send a message.
The Black contralto put European art music and African-American spirituals in parity — and in her art, paved the way for generations of singers after her, both inside and outside classical music.
The Instrument of Hope, a trumpet made partly of bullets and inspired by the survivors of the 2018 Parkland, Fla., mass shooting, is touring the country to promote healing.
