CD Selections

Let me make one thing clear: I am not a gamer. I am, however, an admirer of the recordings of La Pieta, the Canadian all-female string orchestra, and…

Drummer, composer, producer, and vocalist Terri Lyne Carrington has been on the scene for over 20 years, and her interpretation of jazz has always blurred…

There's a certain intensity of spirit in jazz and improvised music, to the point where it occasionally aligns with religious worship. Of course, sometimes jazz musicians just like playing familiar songs. Here are five records, all from 2012, which run the gamut of Christmas jazz.

"Good music is good music," violinist Angèle Dubeau says. The Canadian musician interprets theme music from Halo, Angry Birds and other video games on her latest album.

From the versatility of the violin to the virtuosity of a mysterious opera composer, NPR's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin an eclectic set of the year's best classical recordings.

Hear a celebrated mezzo-soprano sing an aria from her exceptional new recording of Baroque opera selections, ranging from Handel and Haydn to nearly forgotten — but fiery and fabulous — arias by composers including Orlandini and Giacomelli.

"The Empress of the Blues" gave voice the listeners' tribulations and yearnings of the 1920s and '30s. A new 10-CD box set collects the complete works of the colossus who straddled jazz and blues.

The phrase "elegant soul" could describe numerous things: a person, a fashion, a way one deals with life. But after listening to Gene Harris' 1968…

Landing at No. 1 of a 2008 top-10 list of works by living composers in the U.K. was The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins. I was fortunate to be…

On Matane Malit, the singer and her group offers a transfixing balance of old and new, laying expansive instrumentation over traditional Albanian folk melodies.