We asked writers, critics and musicians including Meshell Ndegeocello and Angel Bat Dawid to tell us what moves them in Coltrane’s spiritual jazz.
Listen to all the moods from the grand master of Western classical music: consoling, rousing, peaceful, passionate.
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell: They altered the course of American music and raised the bar for improvisation. Listen to 10 experts’ favorites.
This is the best of the stormy, tender work of the composer who changed music.
Listen as Carlos Santana, Branford Marsalis and others pick their favorites of the moody master of 19th-century music.
What would Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber pick to make a friend love the sweet-toned cello?
Listen to the gorgeous sound of a mass of voices: ancient, contemporary, gospel, opera, sacred, romantic.
Listen to favorite songs by an adventurous musician who pushed the boundaries of jazz, selected by writers and musicians including Nailah Hunter, Kieran Hebden and the artist’s son Eagle-Eye Cherry.
We asked jazz musicians, writers and others to tell us what moves them. Listen to their choices.
We asked musicians and experts, including Thundercat, Patrice Rushen and Nicole Sweeney, which Hancock song they would play for a friend.
Writers, scholars, radio hosts and musicians, including the bassist Ron Carter, share songs that shine a light on an instrument that lays the foundation of jazz.
The flute is one of the more overlooked instruments in jazz, but it’s been making an impact on improvised music for more than 50 years. Let 10 experts take you on a guided tour.
Coltrane changed the game in American music a few times over. Here’s a guided tour to his career, courtesy of 15 musicians, scholars, poets, writers and other experts.
Listen to the best of opera’s defining diva, chosen by Patti LuPone, Renée Fleming, Marina Abramovic and many more.
We asked a dozen musicians, scholars and critics to help take us on a tour of the music and mind of a pianist whose decades-long career made her a Mount Rushmore figure in jazz.
The drummer helped pioneer bebop in the 1940s and delivered a message of resistance and liberation from the 1960s on. Listen to 13 selections from musicians, writers and critics.
Navigate the trumpeter’s snaky, endless grooves with picks from Flying Lotus, Cindy Blackman Santana and Terence Blanchard, among other musicians, writers and critics.
Let Mark Hamill, Condoleezza Rice and Mitsuko Uchida be your guide to this bright, vivid master.
Many cities have rich jazz histories, but none goes back as far as New Orleans. We asked Wendell Pierce, Courtney Bryan and others what song they would play to get a friend to join the party.
Patti Smith, John Turturro and Renée Fleming chose their favorite dramatic passages.
We asked writers, critics and musicians including Kamasi Washington, Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings to tell us how they connect with Coleman’s fearless artistry.
Listen to the varied, explosive, resonant sounds of instruments struck, shaken, pounded, scratched.
We asked Lang Lang and some other favorite artists for the piano music they’d share.
All it might take is a second and a half of hearing her sing to make your spine tingle or your heart drop. Opera singers, jazz vocalists, writers and Vaughan’s biographer share their favorites.
The pianist and vocalist was at once magnetically powerful and laid-back, glamorous and understated. A mix of musicians, writers and radio personalities share their favorites.
Hear the soaring voices of Maria Callas, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price and Renée Fleming.
The country has a rich, original relationship to jazz, with American techniques layered into regional traditions and rhythms. Explore 50 years of recordings picked by musicians, poets and writers.
Listen as our writers and some of our favorite artists share music of intimacy, intensity and joy.
Questlove, Dawn Richard and a range of other musicians, writers and critics share their favorites from the experimental pianist, organist and bandleader’s wide-ranging catalog.
Rufus Wainwright, Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli and others choose opera’s most passionate, golden voices.
We asked Jon Batiste, Arooj Aftab, Mary Halvorson and others to share their favorites.
Listen to Louis Armstrong’s sweetness, Miles Davis’s wild squall, Handel’s Baroque majesty and other favorites.
We asked Hilary Hahn, John Adams and André Rieu to pick the violin sounds that move them. Listen to their choices.
“He always was a genius,” Herbie Hancock says of his friend and collaborator. Hear a sampling of that genius in these 13 tracks.
Ivo van Hove, Justin Peck, Du Yun and others explore the music of today.
Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Jazz