Music

The new album 3 showcases Lafayette Gilchrist's maximalist jazz piano in a trio setting rather than with his seven-piece New Volcanoes band. Even in the more intimate arrangement, Gilchrist isn't afraid to make the box shout; this is jazz from artists influenced by everything from hip-hop to the D.C. area's distinctive go-go sound.

Since she began her recording career in the '70s, Patti Smith has never been shy about recording covers of her favorite songs, such as Van Morrison's "Gloria." Now she's released an album consisting entirely of other people's songs — a dozen covers, originally recorded by acts as diverse as the Doors, Nirvana and the Rolling Stones, under the simple title Twelve.

About 10 years ago, a new variation on hip-hop became popular in San Francisco's Bay Area. It's called "hyphy" (pronounced "hi-fee"), slang for hyper-active, and it's gaining in national popularity. Hyphy Hitz, a new anthology of tracks from Bay Area acts, suggests that's partly because hyphy presents a more playful, energetic attitude than most contemporary hip-hop.

Koko Taylor long ago earned her title of "Queen of the Blues." In the mid-sixties, she came to Chicago from a sharecropper farm in Tennessee. There, she was discovered by the celebrated songwriter and performer Willie Dixon, who provided her with her crossover hit, "Wang Dang Doodle".

In 1975, after her record company went out of business, she signed with Alligator Records — and critic Milo Miles says Old School, her new album on that label, embodies Alligator's straightforward, hard-rocking blues style.

For many veteran AfroPop performers, the end of the LP era meant their back catalogs were suddenly unavailable. And for many of those musicians, there's no prospect of a CD being produced locally. So it's good news, according to music critic Milo Miles, that the music of one performer who made a splash in the West — Nigerian juju superstar King Sunny Ade — is being smartly preserved in the digital age. Miles reviews three new collections: Gems From the Classic Years and The Best of the Classic Years, both on the Shanachie label, and King of Juju, from Wrasse.

Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka, who marks his 50th anniversary in the music business this year, helped create what's known as the Brill Building sound in the late '50s and early '60s. He's been inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, but he got his start as a classical pianist. He joins Terry Gross to talk about his life as a performer — and about The Definitive Collection, a career-spanning greatest-hits compendium.

Fountains of Wayne, the band led by songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood, has a new album called Traffic and Weather, their first collection of new songs in four years.

Amy Winehouse is a 23 year-old British singer-songwriter who takes much of her inspiration from American soul and R&B. Her American debut album, Back To Black, topped the British charts and hit the American charts at number seven.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Ned Rothenberg has always been a musical cosmopolitan.

Early on, he studied jazz with George Coleman and shakuhachi flute in Japan. Later, Rothenberg put together his North African-influenced Double Band, and toured in duos with the Tuvan throat singer Saimkho Namtchylak, the shakuhachi virtuoso Katsuya Yokoyama and English saxophone improviser Evan Parker.

Rothenberg's new album, Inner Diaspora, sends him back to his roots.

A new Criterion four-DVD box set — Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist features several of Robeson's films and an abundance of documentary material.

With his band the MGs, Booker T. Jones created the classic instrumental "Green Onions." But they were also the studio band for Stax Records, making music with soul artists such as Otis Redding, Ray Charles and Wilson Pickett. A new two-CD box set features Stax highlights and Booker T. is now back on tour.

Record producer Joe Boyd has worked with Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Richard and Linda Thompson, R.E.M. and many other musical acts. He has a new memoir, called White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s.

Ramos is considered a pioneer of Tejano music, the sound known for its traditional Mexican roots infused with the big-band sound of the 1940s, and heavily influenced by blues and rock. He is the bandleader of Ruben and the Texas Revolution. Their most recent recording is –El Gato Negro: A Class Act—. Hes also part of the all-star band Los Super Seven which has a new CD –Canto—

Cantilever is the new solo album from Jeff Murphy, formerly of the 1970s band Shoes.

LCD Soundsystem is a band that exists primarily in the recording studio, with singer-writer-producer James Murphy playing most of the instruments.

When LCD Soundsystem performs live, he usually assembles a four-piece band that can reproduce the kind of dance-punk-electronica mixture that won the band's previous album a Grammy nomination in 2005.

LCD Soundsystem's new album, called Sound of Silver, broadens the project's sound to make Murphy's rhythms even more accessible.

Trumpeter Enrico Rava is one of Italy's best known and most recorded jazz musicians.

He's a true internationalist, working with players from all around Western Europe. Rava has also played with Americans such as saxophonist Steve Lacy, composer Carla Bley and trombonist Roswell Rudd.

In the 1970s, Rava made some memorable records for the ECM label. Now he's back with the company and one happy results is The Words and the Days.

The Stooges rock band, led by singer Iggy Pop, have just released their first album in almost 35 years. It's called The Weirdness.

These days, Iggy Pop's best known piece of music may be the riff for his song "Lust for Life," which was used prominently in the movie Trainspotting and, more recently, in a TV commercial for a cruise ship line.

But when he was with the Stooges in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Iggy Pop helped define the path that punk and metal music would follow in the years to come.

Singer Mary Weiss first found fame as a member of the Shangri-Las, with hits like "Leader of the Pack," "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" and "Give Him a Great Big Kiss." Now she's recorded her first album of new material since 1965. It's called Dangerous Game.

Four women musicians from Bellingham, Wash., who call themselves "The Trucks" have released a debut album of the same name, with language and attitude that is not going to get them much airplay on mainstream radio.

The Trucks are another entry in a long line of female rock bands that know and find their audience.

Prolific jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine has a new recording: Uri Caine Ensemble Plays Mozart.