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Ashby swings, plain and simple. When she plays some mid-tempo scooting-along tune, all the stock riffage and jazz bravado common on so many '50s records disappears. Leading her chamber group, she operates in an unassuming way, leaping through intricate arpeggios that no other jazz instrumentalist could attempt.

Given four days to record a couple of songs for a film, Marketa Irglova and The Frames' Glen Hansard made a full-length record. The result is 10 quietly brilliant songs, each built around piano, acoustic guitar, violin, cello and the two headliners' soft, sweet voices.

Each song on singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst's new CD, Strange Conversation, has its genesis in a poem, by writers ranging from Lord Byron and George Eliot to Edna St. Vincent Millay and E.E. Cummings.

Recorded in only one take at the Sun Studio in Memphis, Jerry Lee Lewis' original recording of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" propelled the rock legend to instant fame. In 2005, the Library of Congress selected the song for the National Recording Registry.

Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" is considered one of the most popular of all 20th-century classical works. Its 1938 premiere by the NBC Orchestra with conductor Arturo Toscanini is a recent selection for the National Recording Registry.

Musician, composer and bandleader Don Byron has a new album out, Do the Boomerang. It's a collection of songs associated with the great Motown saxophonist and singer Autry "Junior Walker" DeWalt. Tracks include Shotgun and Roadrunner. While Byron is usually associated with the clarinet, he plays tenor sax on this new CD.

Lupe Fiasco is a Chicago-based rapper who made his mainstream debut on the most recent CD by Kanye West, who is also from Chicago. Now Fiasco is further cementing the Windy City's reputation as a breeding ground for innovative hip-hop, with a new CD, Food and Liquor.

It's easy to focus on McKay's lunatic-fireball appeal, but the hymn-like "Gladd" offers a reminder that she's also capable of jaw-droppingly beautiful songs. With a Joni Mitchell-like purity, she sings a friend to a peaceful death over a simple series of piano chords that gently push forward with minimal ornamentation.

Rock Plaza Central isn't afraid to get thematically ambitious: The Canadian band's self-released Are We Not Horses is a concept album about the "apocalyptic daydreams of six-legged robotic horses," who believe they are real horses and find themselves caught in a war between humans and angels.

British singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, talks about his musical and spiritual journey and performs songs from his new CD, An Other Cup.