WRTI Picks from NPR Music

The two artists are known opposites in the world of instrumental music. On Metheny's latest, the jazz guitarist wrings an unexpectedly visual listening experience from Zorn's knotty compositions.

For the 200 anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth, William Berger, author of Wagner Without Fear, guides us through five of his favorite Wagner moments — musical episodes that keep the composer's extraordinary dramas in our lives today.

"Women in Jazz Day" officially hits New York City Friday, complete with a new documentary on the subject.

Rachel Barton Pine says that while recording an album of music designed to help babies sleep, it helped to keep her own infant daughter in mind.

Pianist and composer John Beasley isn't exactly a household name. But he's now been tapped twice to direct many of them during the star-studded International Jazz Day concert. So is it difficult to play "jazz police" in an ancient church in Istanbul?

Although renowned as a soloist and Grammy winner, the famed cellist devoted much of his life to teaching students at Indiana University. Starker died Sunday at age 88.

In 1982, Jaki Byard and Tommy Flanagan played a duet date in San Francisco. Both pianists were of equal stature, among the best-respected in jazz history. But a newly released recording of that event illustrates why their differences are plenty interesting, too.

The violinist, vocalist and composer says that writing a piece like her prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices begins with "having a sound in your head that you really want to hear."

What impressed most about Colin Davis wasn't his extraordinarily broad view of music and art, his eloquent turns of phrase, or even his naughty sense of humor, but it was instead something less tangible — his sense of self.

As NPR's employees file their federal returns and take up shop in a new building, we look back at an interesting historical moment in the 1940s. A cabaret tax led to more jazz being performed in smaller venues that couldn't accommodate dancing. Of course, that's not the only reason why bebop sounds the way it does.