Music

The girl group Reparata and the Delrons worked its forward-looking magic on songs like "Captain Of Your Ship," "Boys and Girls," "Shoes," and "Whenever a Teenager Cries." The band became far more popular overseas than in America, however.

The new CD from the Mary Lou Williams Collective is Zodiac Suite: Revisited. The trio, created by pianist Geri Allen, plays the tunes of Mary Lou Williams.

Drummer Paul Motian has spent more than 50 years in music, working with jazz luminaries like Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk. At 75, he has a new CD of bebop jazz: Garden of Eden, featuring his own band.

Echoing music from the 1950s and '60s, Pay the Devil is the new album from Van Morrison. The album has Morrison reprising songs made famous by Hank Williams, Webb Pierce and Connie Smith.

Guitarist and singer Ali Farka Toure of Mali died March 7 at the age of 66. Farka Toure was a booster of Mali's march toward independence.

Rabbit Fur Coat is the debut solo album by Jenny Lewis, the former child-actress who is also the former lead singer of the cult-indie rock band Rilo Kiley.

Stuart Murdoch is the front man for the Scottish indie-pop band Belle and Sebastian. For the group's new CD, The Life Pursuit, they've broken two long-standing traditions: making quietly precious music, and refusing to embrace the media.

The jazz trio headed by Sam Rivers has a new CD out, Violet Violets (Stunt label). Rivers' horn work is complemented by bassist Ben Street and Danish drummer Kresten Osgood.

The British music press is hailing a new band, the Arctic Monkeys, as being as big as the Beatles — or at least as big as Oasis. The first-week release of the band's debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, sold over 118,000 copies.

The video-sharing Web site YouTube.com has changed the way some people see the Internet. But it's also changing how people hear vintage artists, from the late Wilson Pickett to the up-and-coming Arctic Monkeys.

The Joy of Cooking, a band led by two women out of Berkeley, Calif., in the late 1960s, is enjoying something of a revival. The group's brand of folk-rock included elements of jazz, blues and Latin music.

The legendary soul scene in Miami that had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s is the subject of a new retrospective. Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label the imprint that discovered Betty Wright, Paul Kelly, and Clarence "Blowfly" Reid.

Monk's Bones is the new CD from the Monk's Music Trio.

First Impressions of Earth is the third album by the Strokes. The record offers some self-criticism — and some frantic career adjustment in the midst of the music. The Strokes begin a 17-city tour on March 3.

The Minus 5 is the newest album by singer-songwriter Scott McCaughey.

Cubist Music is the new recording by Puerto Rican pianist Edsel Gomez. It's on the Zoho label.

Several recent DVDs take up the history of punk music. Don Letts' Punk Attitude focuses on the ethos of teen rebellion, while All Dolled Up tells the story of the influential New York Dolls.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz shares his thoughts on the 250th anniversary of his favorite composer's birth: Mozart. Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756. (Music in the segment is from Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutte, taken from the DVD of the Peter Sellars production, conducted by Craig Smith on the Universal label.)

The new box set Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 is the latest in a crop of critical anthologies that add perspective to the history of jazz.