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Pianist Laurence Hobgood has been a fixture on the Chicago jazz scene for years. He has recently come to prominence as pianist, musical director and co-producer for the much-celebrated jazz singer Kurt Elling. The pianist gives an interview and performance on Piano Jazz.

On Sept. 12, 1910, Gustav Mahler introduced his Symphony No. 8 -- a massive, hulking work featuring an enormous double chorus and the largest orchestra ever put on stage at the time. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas says he thought it was the most "grotesque assemblage of noises" he had ever heard. But many years later, he has recorded a Grammy-winning version of the symphony.

Greg Tate's death left an immeasurable hole in the universe of cultural criticism. Vernon Reid, Matana Roberts, Jared Michael Nickerson and Christina Wheeler pay tribute to his music as Burnt Sugar.

Deanna Witkowski draws on a variety of influences — from Chopin to Cole Porter to a relatively unknown Brazilian rhythm called baião. It's no wonder the pianist finds her music going in different directions — sometimes within the same song — as in her "Wide Open Window." Hear Liane Hansen's performance chat with Witkowski in NPR's Studio 4A.

Watch the Pakistan-born singer and her masterful band perform songs of love and loss in a decrepit, yet generously resonant, convent in Brooklyn.

Born in 1909, Ben Webster is considered one of the most important swing tenors in jazz. He also was a master of ballads, as exemplified on 1959's Ben Webster & Associates. The album features trumpeter Roy Eldridge and tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.

Even a ubiquitous figure like Chuck Berry has neglected gems gathering spiderwebs in remote corners of his catalog. Blues helps fill in a bit of his legend, showing how he transferred devices used by generations of blues guitarists into the then-new rebellion of rock.

A performer of boundless energy, Sammy Davis Jr. was known for plowing over audiences with flim-flam and razzle-dazzle. But in the studio, the diminutive don of the Rat Pack was, at times anyway, a serious singer. Here, he performs in a desolate cocktail bar, with only a guitarist for support.

Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis find the bitterness between Schubert's deceivingly sweet lines.

The composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Bates has also been a DJ for 10 years. Here, he describes his double life in classical and electronic music.