Music

Will Oldham's new album Beware, released under his country music name, Bonnie Prince Billy, offers lovely music with a tinge of "lonesome-cowboy pokiness." Ken Tucker has a review.

Originally released in 1961, electric guitarist Grant Green's first album with Blue Note Records, Grant's First Stand, has been reissued. Green has a solid swinger's knack for skippy, airborne jazz rhythms, but some of his lines wouldn't sound out of place in a Chicago blues bar.

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Kinsmen blends South Asian music with American jazz. The jazz saxophonist says his inspiration to explore Indian music on the saxophone came from a CD his brother gave him as a joke called Saxophone Indian Style.

The heart of the blues-rock group Heartless Bastards is Erika Wennerstrom, who wears hers on her sleeve. Her band's new album, The Mountain, features a bold, hard-hitting sound.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the second album from the indie-pop duo The Bird And The Bee.

Jeff "Tain" Watts, an original member of the Wynton Marsalis quintet, has released an album titled Watts. But it's no ego trip; the disc is inspired, at least in part, by L.A.'s Watts neighborhood.

M. Ward's seventh album Hold Time was released Feb. 17. The singer-songwriter is known for his largely acoustic and usually spare arrangements. Ken Tucker has a review.

Conductor, arranger and musical historian John McGlinn frequently stripped classic musicals to their roots by returning to original orchestrations and reinstating lost songs. McGlinn died on Feb. 14; Fresh Air remembers him with interviews from 1989 and 1992.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews For All I Care, the new album from The Bad Plus joined by Wendy Lewis.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the debut release by the L.A. band Fol Chen. The album is called Part 1: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made.

Jazz singer and pianist Blossom Dearie was a great singer with the tiniest of voices. Dearie died Feb 7. She was 82. Fresh Air remembers her with an interview from 1998.

Composer, conductor and pianist Lukas Foss led several orchestras in his career, and took the Brooklyn Philharmonic from a community orchestra to a vital part of New York City's music scene. Foss died Feb. 1. He was 86.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street, the new CD by trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell.

Mosaic Records has re-released the work of jazz musician Anthony Braxton in an eight-CD set. The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton features recordings from the 1970s that previously existed only on vinyl. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has a review.

Antony Hegarty, lead singer for Antony and the Johnsons, has a striking sound — "between male and female ... at once ethereal and earthy," one critic writes. The group's new CD is The Crying Light.

Saxophonist Hank Crawford died Jan. 29 at the age of 74. The Memphis-born musician backed B.B. King and Ray Charles before going solo. He later became the musical director for Charles' band. Fresh Air remembers Crawford with a 1998 interview.

James Bobin is the co-creator and director of HBO's series Flight Of The Conchords. He has been nominated for eight Emmys since 2003 for his work on Conchords and Da Ali G Show.

Director George Tillman Jr.'s Notorious, which follows the life and death of the rapper Biggie Smalls, opens in theaters this weekend. David Edelstein has a review.