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Country bluesman R.L. Burnside died this week in Memphis at 78. He worked a good part of his life as a sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta. He made his first recording in his 40s and didn't become a fulltime professional musician until he was in his 60s.

Hurricane Katrina scattered New Orleans musicians — leaving many without home or income. A few players from the Crescent City, including Rock and Roll Hall of famer Allan Toussaint, perform live in NPR's Washington, D.C. studios.

At just 26 years old, Hiromi is considered one of Japan's best jazz pianists and composers. Musician and Day to Day contributor David Was says her music is "part classical, part jazz and part simply unclassifiable." He reviews her third album, Spiral.

Debussy's groundbreaking work La Mer helped usher in the modern era of classical music and broke new ground in orchestration.

Emerging musical wunderkind Sonya Kitchell has just released her debut, Cold Day. At just 16 years old, Kitchell's talents as a songwriter and vocalist are inspiring awe.

On a new album, the most accessible so far, the Grammy-winning group reaches out to an EDM wizard, a famous film score composer and Philip Glass.

We remember Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, the singer and guitarist who died Saturday in his hometown of Orange, Texas. He had gone there to escape Hurricane Katrina. He was 81. Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in ill health for the past year, said Rick Cady, his booking agent. Cady said the musician was with his family at his brother's house when he died. Brown's home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina, Cady said.

The jazz icon turns 85 on Dec. 6. He'll celebrate with a concert in London where he will be joined by the London Symphony. There are several recent collections of his work: The Dave Brubeck Collection, which reissues five of his classic out-of-print LPs, and Dave Brubeck: Time Signature: A Career Retrospective.

Jazz singer and pianist Shirley Horn's graceful career began in the 1960s, and lasted until her death this week at 71. Her voice and style put her in the ranks of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

Jazz singer Nina Simone, once dubbed the "High Priestess of Soul," died two years ago. Now the RCA record label has released an anthology of her music, called The Soul of Nina Simone. Musician and writer David Was has a review.