Music

The song "Alone Yet Not Alone" had been nominated for Best Original Song at this year's Oscars. Not anymore. Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter explains why.

Eric Dolphy's creativity was exploding early in 1964, and he was finding more players who could keep up. Out to Lunch is free and focused, dissonant and catchy, wide open and swinging all at once.

Session musician Stephen Bruner has played bass in other people's bands for more than a decade. He can play metal, R&B, hip-hop, jazz. With his second album, he's stepping to the front of the stage.

Daughter of Everything is a superb pop album with one foot in the past and another in the future.

Ken Tucker says The River & The Thread is a travelogue; a timeless work of comfort and quiet joy.

Mohamed Abdi Farah's life and career changed when he was caught in a national calamity in 2011. Now, he hopes to become his country's representative in Eurovision, the Europe-wide singing competition.

With so much pressure on schools to improve test scores, music and the arts sometimes fall off the list of priorities. That's led advocates for music education to point out its benefits in the classroom.

Each month NPR Music asks public radio hosts and DJs to pick a favorite new song. Today we'll hear from Jason King, host of I'll Take You There, NPR Music's new 24 hour Soul and R&B stream. He's talking about his pick for Heavy Rotation: "No More" by Jeremih and Shlohmo.

Download new music from orchestral indie-folk acts San Fermin and Typhoon, rising hip-hop artist Rapsody, Ethiopian legend Mulatu Astatke, French synth band La Femme, Americana star Amanda Shires and more.

Our public radio panelists share their favorite new tracks for October. Download music from the brilliant singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, songwriter to the stars Dev Hynes, Philadelphia rapper Freeway, jazz iconoclast John Zorn, Odd Future-affiliated soul outfit The Internet and more.

There's something tender and specific about the ways elders like Frank Wess shaped their notes.

Even as they reached the Top 10 in Britain, appeared on TV and had young women swooning by the thousands across the pond, their first singles in the U.S. were released on tiny independent labels and went nowhere. What went wrong, and finally right, in the leadup to the night of Feb. 7, 1964.