Search results for

A Performance Today listener calls in with a song to sing, and pianist Gabriela Montero creates her own improvisation around it, right on the spot. This time, memories of jazz singer Betty Carter inspire the caller to sing "So Many Stars."

Fifty years ago Sunday, the jazz musician Art Tatum died. He's among the piano geniuses of all time, in any genre. People who heard him for the first time on a record often thought they were listening to two piano players. Yet his legacy is often overlooked.

Ned Wharton, musical director for Weekend Edition Sunday, offers a collection of recordings offbeat enough to surprise your favorite music lover this holiday season.

Often replaced by curt emails and abbreviated text messages, personal letters can seem like lost artifacts. The Swedish electronica duo Koop has noticed this, as its cinematic "Beyond the Sun" celebrates the art of letter writing in a fast-moving world.

Proficient on both alto and tenor saxophone, James Moody was also a brilliant jazz flutist. He toured Europe in the 1940s with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Max Roach. This album is known for its popular title track, which is a version of "I'm in the mood for love."

Such Sweet Thunder combines two master artists: Duke Ellington and William Shakespeare. A twelve-part suite based on the Bard's plays and sonnets, the album brings Lady Macbeth to life as a ragtime melody.

Legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman has more than eighty albums to his name. Unlike many Goodman records, Ken Burns' JAZZ Series: Benny Goodman contains samples of work from his earlier and later years. The album also has most of Goodman's big band hits, including "Sing, Sing, Sing."

In 1960, "the first lady of song," Ella Fitzgerald, recorded the album that Murray Horwitz calls "his favorite Ella Fitzgerald performance of all time." Wishes You a Swinging Christmas includes classic holiday pieces by Irving Berlin and Mitchell Parish.

Billie Holiday, also known as "Lady Day," began her career singing in Harlem nightclubs. She recorded the album Love Songs in the 1930s, when jazz commentator A.B. Spellman says she was "at her best."

Pat Metheny is perhaps best known for his post-1980s work, but he also produced one of the classics of the "dead" jazz period of the 1970s: Bright Size Life. The album pays homage to Metheny's Midwestern roots with songs such as "Omaha Celebration."