Search results for

Tom Moon reviews the solo album by Blur and Gorillaz frontman, Damon Albarn. The new album, called Everyday Robots, examines the human toll of our ever-present technology.

A decade ago, Basement Jaxx couldn't get a record label interested in releasing the group's first EP. Fast forward to 2005: Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe, the producers behind the Jaxx sound, are a global phenomenon in the dance music scene.

Pit Baumgartner — a.k.a. De Phazz — made his name constructing popular remixes of songs by famous jazz artists like Ella Fitzgerald. The German deejay's latest album is Tales of Trust.

For those who think all Cajun music sounds exactly the same, a new CD tries to dispel that pervasive and dangerous myth. Christine Balfa Plays the Triangle offers up nearly an hour of triangle solos, performed by a woman with an impeccable Cajun pedigree.

Chris Harbaugh, a mail carrier from Chantilly, Va, shares his favorite tunes with NPR's Steve Inskeep. Harbaugh prefers good songwriting -- less focus on guitar solos or bare navels, and more emphasis on the lyrics and the mood of the music itself.

Musician, producer, arranger, composer Quincy Jones has a new autobiography, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, (Doubleday) and a 4-CD boxset collecting his work, Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones (Rhino). In his fifty year career hes worked with just about anyone who is anybody in the music business. As a teenager he played backup for Billie Holiday, along with his 16 year old friend, Ray Charles. At 18 he began playing the trumpet in Lionel Hamptons band beside Clifford Brown. He went on to work with Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Lesley Gore and many others. He wrote the theme songs for the TV shows Sanford & Sons, and Ironside, and music for the films In Cold Blood, For the Love of Ivy, and The Pawnbroker. His biggest commercial success was producing and arranging Michael Jacksons 1982 hit album Thriller.

Nicole Mitchell's Renegades matches exploratory playing with deep grooves and a tight ensemble blend. The new group is Black Earth Strings, consisting of flute, three strings and percussionist Shirazette Tinnin.

The veteran punk rocker John Doe embraced his inner mountain man on Country Club, an album of classic country covers he recorded with The Sadies. The Canadian rockers and the former X frontman joined Terry Gross in the Fresh Air studio for an interview and an intimate performance. (Rebroadcast from April 2009.)

The banjo has country-music and bluegrass associations, but the Texas musician is taking the instrument further: to jazz, punk and pop. His latest solo release is titled Pizza Box, and it features guest vocals by Dave Matthews.

The pop group, composed of brothers Joe, Kevin and Nick Jonas, formed in 2005. Their next album, titled The Album, will be released May 5.