Music

World Music Commentator Milo Miles reviews the music of Yugoslavian Jova "Besir" Stojiljkovic (YO-va BEE-sheer stoya-KOL-vich) and his brass orchestra.

Rock critic Ken Tucker checks out some of the albums getting heavy airplay on college radio. Ken says college radio used to be hip, but these days it's just as formulaic as Top 40.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz pays tribute to the late mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani (DEE-guy-tahny). DeGaetani died last September; Lloyd reviews her last album, just released by Bridge records. It contains works by Berlioz and Mahler.

Rock historian Ed Ward profiles the Lovin' Spoonful, who came out of the Greenwich Village folk music scene, but who owed more to Chuck Berry than to Appalachian ballad-singers.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the new album from pianist Dick Hyman and cornetist Ruby Braff. The pair have been playing together off and on since the mid 70s. This time they've teamed up and revived an old jazz tradition, playing tunes from Broadway. The album's called "Music from My Fair Lady," and it's on Concord Jazz.

World music critic Milo Miles looks at the music of Tanzania, and he reviews the new album by Tanzanian musician, Remmy Ongala.

Rock critic Ken Tucker looks at the "New Traditionalism" in country music as performed by such singers as Randy Travis and Rodney Crowell, and with a unique twist by the Jayhawks.

Writer Timothy Ryback. He's just written a book chronicling the history of rock music in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In the book, "Rock around the Bloc," RYBACK shows how rock music has been a presence there from the mid-1950's beginning with the Elvis Craze, and continuing with Beatlemania, and punk and heavy metal music. The rock movement spawned officially sanctioned bands as well as underground groups. Ryback says the recent events in Eastern Europe were foreshadowed in 1988 when government policy on rock bands were loosened there.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the soundtrack of the new Broadway revival of Anything Goes.

Rock historian Ed Ward takes us back to 1980 for the birth of rap music.

Composer John Adams. Although he comes out of the classical tradition, Adams is not afraid to use drum machines, synthesizers and silent-movie chord progressions in his music. His latest work, "The Wound Dresser", is a setting of a poem by Walt Whitman about the experience of tending wounded soldiers during the Civil War. For Adams, the work has connections to both the AIDS crisis and his father's recent battle with Alzheimer's disease. Adams also talks about his best-known work, the opera "Nixon in China".

Terry talks with Fresh Air's rock critic, Ken Tucker, about rock in the 80s.

Rock critic Ken Tucker gives his picks for the best albums of 1989.

Rock historian Ed Ward look back ten years, to what was happening in music in 1980.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead looks back on jazz in the 80s...the big figures, the big trends, the big albums, and he takes a guess as to what the 90s will bring.

Milo Miles plays some international dance singles, and speculates on their chances to make it as hits in America.

Jazz guitarist Jim Hall. In the 50s, Hall was part of the West Coast jazz scene. Several years later he was touring South America with Ella Fitzgerald when the Bossa Nova craze hit. That music's been a lasting influence on Hall. In the 70s, Hall recorded with free-jazz player Ornette Coleman and made several albums with jazz's best bassists. In all, Hall's made more than 100 albums, his latest, with his quartet, is called "All Across The City." It's on the Concord jazz label.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Quincy Jones' new album "Back on the Block." Jones produced the album, co-wrote some of the numbers and performs a bit, but mainly it's a showcase for some of his favorite performers, ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to the rapper Ice-T.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new album of contemporary American music by pianist Ursula Oppens. It has music both commissioned and performed by Oppens. It's "Ursula Oppens Plays American Piano Music of Our Time" on the Music & Arts label.

Film director Jim Jarmusch. After his first feature, "Permanent Vacation," gained a cult as well as a critical following in Europe, Jarmusch made "Stranger Than Paradise," which won the Camera d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Jarmusch's third feature was "Down By Law." His new film is called "Mystery Train." It's set in a seedy hotel in Memphis, Tennessee and tells the story of two young Japanese tourists.