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Music Interviews
3:56 pm
Sat June 23, 2012

Matt Wilson: 'I Hear Melody In All Rhythm'

Credit Jimmy Katz
Matt Wilson plays drums in the jazz ensemble Arts and Crafts.

Originally published on Sat June 23, 2012 4:42 pm

By day, jazz drummer Matt Wilson teaches his craft at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. By night, he practices it with legends like Lee Konitz at storied venues like the Village Vanguard.

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Music
3:03 pm
Sat June 23, 2012

Fresh Bluegrass For A Sultry Summer

Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 4:20 pm

In many places across the country, summer officially blasted in this week, which means that musicians who've wintered in dark rehearsal studios — and the street players who've been toiling away in cold and damp subway corridors — can now enjoy playing alfresco.

This summer, Weekend Edition is presenting audio postcards from musicians out-of-doors.

This installment comes from a group of bluegrass players who gather every couple of weeks at Lyon Park in Arlington, Va. They're members of the Capitol Area Bluegrass and Old-time Music Association, or CABOMA.

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Music Interviews
3:03 pm
Sat June 23, 2012

Cassandra Wilson: 'The Guitar Is My Heart'

Credit Marco Glaviano
Cassandra Wilson explores geography, as well as a lifelong relationship with the guitar, on Another Country.

Originally published on Sun June 24, 2012 6:31 am

Cassandra Wilson was once described by Time magazine as "America's best singer." Wilson was born in segregated Mississippi — also the birthplace of the blues — but she's always been on a journey to explore other sounds and influences.

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All Songs Considered Blog
7:03 am
Sat June 23, 2012

First Watch: Simone White's Stirring Elegy For A Lost Friend

Credit Courtesy of the artist
Simone White, from her video for the song "Flowers In May," from her 2012 album Silver Silver.

Life's most profound moments are often its most ordinary: the sound a key makes when you unlock your front door; the feel of your own weight as you rise in the morning or the simple act of breathing. The Los Angeles-based singer Simone White explores the deeper meanings of otherwise mundane moments like these in a new video for the song "Flowers In May," from her latest album Silver Silver.

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The Record
5:23 am
Sat June 23, 2012

A Summer With Fun.

Credit Mito Habe-Evans / NPR
Nate Ruess before fun.'s show at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on Friday.

Originally published on Sat August 18, 2012 11:26 am

Fun. is in the middle of quite a run. For six weeks this spring, the band had the No. 1 song in the country with "We Are Young," an anthemic pledge of drunken solidarity that has appeared in countless commercials and TV shows, and dominated radio playlists and sales charts since March (it's still in the top five).

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Deceptive Cadence
3:47 pm
Fri June 22, 2012

Around The Classical Internet: June 22, 2012

Credit Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images
Gustavo Dudamel applauds the youngsters of Scotland's Big Noise Orchestra after their Thursday performance in Stirling.
  • This week, Gustavo Dudamel was in Scotland to visit Raploch, Stirling, the "former haunt of notorious crime-clan ­matriarch Big Mags Haney and once so educationally deprived it was dubbed a 'higher-free zone.'" It now is the home of Big Noise, a classical music project for kids run by Sistema Scotland.
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Song Travels
3:21 pm
Fri June 22, 2012

Marilyn And Alan Bergman On 'Song Travels'

Credit Angela Weiss / Getty Images
Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Songwriters Marilyn and Alan Bergman are a legendary power couple in American popular music whose work includes the themes for television programs Alice, Good Times and In the Heat of the Night. They've earned multiple Emmys, Grammys and Academy Awards, including Best Original Song for "The Way We Were," written with Marvin Hamlisch.

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The Record
3:02 pm
Fri June 22, 2012

Richard Adler, Broadway Composer And Lyricist, Dies

Credit Bob Gomel / Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Celebrated composer and lyricist Richard Adler has died at the age of 90.

Originally published on Fri June 22, 2012 5:11 pm

Piano Jazz
2:40 pm
Fri June 22, 2012

Dave McKenna On Piano Jazz

Originally published on Fri October 2, 2009 10:08 am

This week's show is a tribute to the late pianist Dave McKenna with guest host, pianist and singer Daryl Sherman, who was a friend of McKenna's and is a musical fixture at New York's famous Waldorf Astoria.

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All Songs Considered Blog
2:36 pm
Fri June 22, 2012

Locrian And Mammifer: Affirmation Through Controlled Chaos

Originally published on Fri June 22, 2012 9:05 pm

"Why music?" It comes off like a Philosophy 101 essay question at first, but the more I twist my head around it, the more it causes a volcanic hurl of thought: Why do I love music? Why do I write about it? Why do I care what other people write about it? Do I love a song for the story or for itself? Does that matter? What if I go deaf? Am I going to miss my deadline?

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