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From the late 1940s to the mid-'60s, Latin music was hugely popular in America's Jewish community. Entire albums were recorded as testaments to the phenomenon. One of them, which put Jewish classics to a Latin beat, has just been reissued. This weekend, it will be re-created in concert at Lincoln Center in New York.

Five years ago, vibraphonist and marimba player Stefon Harris started Blackout. It's a troupe of music mercenaries adept in the language of jazz, the strut of soul music and the raucous ruckus of breakbeats, go-go and new-jack rhythms. Hear Blackout bring swagger to modern jazz in a session from WBGO.

The subtle, elusive quality of Debussy's twenty-four preludes is captured perfectly by pianist Paul Jacobs, who plays them with a tolling, bell-like sound. The Bosendorfer piano he uses has a sound similar to that of Debussy's early 20th-century pianos.

We often joke about how many people we can fit behind Bob Boilen's desk. We seem to push the boundary. But the first real test of our limits came when eight members of Dark Meat showed up to play.

Few groups get to achieve a 50th anniversary, but the pioneering American folk trio the got to do just that this year. The release of a three-disc commemorative set by the New Lost City Ramblers was darkened, though, but the death of co-founder Mike Seeger.

Take one part Billie Holiday, two parts Doris Day, toss in a little island indie-pop and you get Zee Avi, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter from Malaysia who's just released her eponymous debut album. Avi talks to Guy Raz about her musical influences.

No one possessed the nerve, or ability, to perform Tchaikovsky's final symphonies with as much dark and passionate intensity as the Russian conductor Evgeny Mravinsky.

For those who can't wait to hear songs from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's follow-up to Once, the pair played six new songs before performing the first-ever Tiny Desk Concert encore.

Ann Patchett first read The Ambassadors — that notoriously opaque Henry James novel — at the suggestion of a good friend. Little did she know she was about to discover "the literary equivalent of a religious text."

In July, thousands of NPR's All Songs Considered listeners cast votes for their favorite songs of 2009's first half. Bob Boilen, the show's host, discusses the results and plays some of listeners' favorite songs with NPR's Melissa Block.