Music & Culture

Remembering jazz pianist Carla Bley, dead at 87

4:52pm October 19, 2023

by Andrew Limbong

Jazz master Carla Bley wrote hundreds of compositions — some of which are now considered standards. She died this week in New York of complications from brain cancer, her husband said. She was 87.

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Music & Culture

Nearly 3 decades since Tupac Shakur's killing, alleged mastermind will be arraigned

5:47am October 19, 2023

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

It's been 27 years since rapper Tupac Shakur was killed, and the alleged mastermind behind the rapper's shooting is due to be arraigned Thursday in a Las Vegas courtroom.

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Music & Culture

25 years ago, Cher released a song that would change the sound of pop music

5:11am October 19, 2023

Cher's song "Believe" was released on Oct. 19, 1998, and it became the first hit song to use Auto-Tune as an instrument — something that's still all over pop music 25 years later.

A 24-year-old piano prodigy, Jahari Stampley, has won one of the most prestigious awards in jazz. The competition held by the Herbie Hancock Institute is widely seen as anointing new stars.

Pianist Jahari Stampley just won a prestigious jazz competition — he's only 24

2:52pm October 18, 2023

by Neda Ulaby

A 24-year-old piano prodigy, Jahari Stampley, has won one of the most prestigious awards in jazz. The competition held by the Herbie Hancock Institute is widely seen as anointing new stars.

Britney Spears memoir reaches bestseller status a week before it hits shelves

12:33pm October 18, 2023

by Andrew Limbong

New excerpts touching on her childhood and relationship with Justin Timberlake are drawing fans interested in her side of the story.

Carla Bley performs in Nice, France, in 2009.

Music & Culture

Carla Bley, prolific and expansive jazz pianist, dies at 87

9:11pm October 17, 2023

by Andrey Henkin

Bley's pieces could be ethereally beautiful or subversively brash, but always found a grandeur without tilting into pretension.

John Malkovich says theater is like surfing. Actors might think they are the wave — but they're not: "The wave is created by the collision between the material and the public. You ride the wave or you don't." Malkovich is pictured above in The Music Critic.

Even Beethoven got bad reviews. John Malkovich reads them aloud as 'The Music Critic'

4:43pm October 17, 2023

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

A new live stage show features actor John Malkovich transformed into some of the meanest music critics ever — in real reviews skewering the work of great composers like Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin.

The investigation into the murder of Tupac Shakur (on stage here in 1994) has long evaded closure. But in the last month, an arrest in connection with his shooting on Sept. 7, 1996, has brought the case back into the spotlight.

Music & Culture

Can the Tupac Shakur murder trial salvage any justice from a 27-year-old case?

3:53pm October 17, 2023

by Sheldon Pearce

The arrest of Duane Davis in the 1996 shooting of the rapper in Las Vegas is a huge development in a case that has evaded closure, as competing narratives and mythologies have emerged in its place.

Lara Downes speaks with Corinne Bailey Rae and Theaster Gates.

Music & Culture

How Corinne Bailey Rae and Theaster Gates are preserving Black culture

5:00am October 17, 2023

by Lara Downes

On her album, Black Rainbows, Bailey Rae was inspired by the art, books and magazines at the Stony Island Arts Bank, a repository for Black history on Chicago's South Side, created by Gates.

Music legend Smokey Robinson has made his way to NPR's Tiny Desk

5:56pm October 16, 2023

Smokey Robinson, who is 83 years old, is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Now, he's made his way to NPR's Tiny Desk.

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