Music

Fresh Air's rock critic reviews Transmiticate, the debut album from Donita Sparks and the Stellar Moments. The Chicago-born Sparks co-founded the punk-grunge band L7.

On February 26, conductor Lorin Maazel led the New York Philharmonic in an unprecedented concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. It was the first time a major American orchestra performed in the communist country. The concert was broadcast nationwide.

Celebrated soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom — a pioneer, among other things, in the use of electronics in live jazz — has an inventively formatted new recording. Fresh Air's jazz critic has a listen.

Fresh Air's jazz critic reviews Mark Miller's High Hat, Trumpet, and Rhythm: The Life and Music of Valaida Snow. It's a biography of jazz singer and musician Valaida Snow, aka "Little Louis."

Musicians Stew and Heidi Rodewald speak with Fresh Air TV critic David Bianculli. They're the founders of a band they call The Negro Problem. Their new Broadway musical, Passing Strange, is an autobiographical look at Stew's journey through music.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the self-titled debut album from the band Vampire Weekend. The quartet has drawn praise — and pointed criticism — for its hooky, globally influenced pop.

Fresh Air's classical music critic reviews an 80-disc set of recordings by Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. The collection, issued 25 years after Gould's death replicates the look of the original LPs.

Fresh Air's jazz critic reviews The Irrational Numbers, the new album from improvisation-oriented bassist Drew Gress. In truth, he says, the numbers the band plays are less "irrational" than pleasantly unpredictable.

Fresh Air's classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new DVD release of a lesser-known Kurt Weill opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny.

Pop-rock singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow joins Terry Gross in the Fresh Air studios for an interview and live performance. Detours, her new album, is the most politically and personally outspoken record of her career.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the New York City rock group The Magnetic Fields' eighth album, Distortion. Front man and producer Stephin Merritt uses feedback between instruments to create distorted white noise — hence the album's title.

Old friends Mick Jones, former lead guitarist of The Clash, and Tony James, once of the Billy Idol-fronted Generation X, have teamed up in a band called Carbon/Silicon. They've been giving away songs for free on their Web site, but their new album, The Last Post, is an official hard-copy CD.

When British musician and record producer Martin Atkins visited Beijing in 2006, he wasn't sure what kind of music scene he'd find. As it turned out, the sounds emerging from the Chinese underground were surprisingly familiar. Milo Miles reports.

Some call them garage-rockers, but the Fleshtones, who actually got their start in a Queens basement, don't stop there. They add in overtones of R&B, rockabilly and even surf to create a sound they like to call "Super Rock." Fresh Air's rock critic takes a good look at their latest album, Take a Good Look.

In 1971, critics hailed soprano Patricia Brooks' recital debut as groundbreaking. A new CD release provides a rare document of a performer who demonstrated a rare mix of talents.

Fresh Air's rock historian considers the intertwined fates of the Impressions' Jerry Butler, and his brother, Chicago soul singer Billy Butler.

The new live album from Andy Bey shows off his extraordinary range as a singer. There's plenty of Ellington, risk-taking, and evidence of his virtuosity—even if he didn't become famous until his ongoing revival in the '90s.

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

It's not often that you hear of a record company being destroyed by success, but that was the fate of one of America's most prominent soul labels, Vee-Jay Records. They recorded John Lee Hooker, the Four Seasons and Betty Everett, but the music has been unavailable for decades. A new box set ends the wait.

Los Zafiros, or The Sapphires, was bigger than The Beatles — in Cuba, anyway. Fresh Air's rock historian reviews a new DVD about the band: Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time.