New Orleans

A legendary music educator in his hometown of New Orleans, tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan was also a heroic voice in the improvising avant-garde. He died on April 7 at 87, but his legacy lives on in myriad ways.

Artists in New Orleans and Cuba are exploring their shared heritage and similar sounds, and bringing high school musicians from both places together in a funky cultural exchange.

Terence Blanchard became the first Black composer to premiere an original opera at The Metropolitan Opera in 2021. Fire Shut Up in My Bones—an adaptation of New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s bestselling memoir about childhood trauma and its layered emotional fallout—opened the Met’s 2021-2022 season. Hear it on WRTI, Saturday, January 8th at 1 PM.

Jazz pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis has died at the age of 85, according to tweets from New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

March 16, 2020. While his better-known brothers, Branford and Wynton, are global phenomena, Delfeayo Marsalis, the trombonist, production whiz and fourth…

January 20, 2020. The Pretenders’ front woman Chrissie Hynde has cut her first jazz album, Valve Bone Woe, which includes 14 songs and some that weren't…

In 2016, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra faced a scandal that cast doubt on its very future. The road to recovery has been, in the words of the group's new CEO, "a tightrope walk."

January 21, 2019. Charlie Dennard doesn’t waste much time on his new album, Deep Blue, before paying homage to his adopted home. The longtime New Orleans…

"Let the good times roll" with WRTI's J. Michael Harrison starting at 9 pm on Mardi Gras to celebrate the city that gave birth to "America's Music" -…