WRTI Picks from NPR Music

Instead of killing herself, Mukhtar Mai took her rapists to court — and won. Her story has been turned into an opera which receives its world premiere in New York.

The composer and bandleader made his first recordings in the late 1940s. In the decades since, Heath has played with and written for everyone from Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to Miles Davis and Milt Jackson.

Faced with a rapid tempo one night, Kenny Clarke devised a new way to play the beat on the ride cymbal. His "spang-a-lang," and the rhythmic ideas it generated, wound up transforming the way we feel swing ever after.

Whether famous or obscure, dozens of artists, producers, documentarians and others who contributed to the music's growth left us last year. Here's a thorough list — and 12 who didn't make all the headlines.

Whatever actually happened to musician Boujemaa Razgui's collection of handmade flutes, it's a reminder not to put precious items in your checked luggage.

By the time 2013 ends, the Minnesota Orchestra will not have played a single note in its own concert hall due to a labor dispute between musicians and management. It's an emblem of the problems facing non-profit arts institutions around the country.

For more than two centuries, France's Pleyel pianos were among the best in the world. They were a favorite of Chopin and Debussy. But now the iconic brand has been forced to close its last remaining plant.

American Routes host Nick Spitzer calls in to chat with NPR's David Greene about noteworthy Christmas contributions from some of jazz music's most revered and beloved artists.

In a year where pop culture looked back at the 1960s, it makes sense that jazz critics lauded the 80-year-old Shorter, who made his first recording in 1959. His latest album displays him as enigmatic as ever — and as committed to finding new sounds.

You could look at Rosewoman's New Yor-Uba band as reuniting cousins who've drifted apart: jazz and folkloric Cuban music with its own family ties to the slave coast of West Africa.