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Jon Batiste premieres new songs and takes us through some of the many sides of his rich musical history at the Tiny Desk.

You, a Pisces full of wisdom, have discovered a new song that lights up your soul. This week on 8 Tracks: Mild to wild obsessions with SZA, Bat for Lashes and Alice Coltrane.

"Fantasia" was released 84 years ago this month. It was an innovative creation from the mind of Kansas City's Walt Disney and brought classical music to broad audiences.

Known for his intellectual and illuminating touch on the podium, the refined conductor was also surprisingly outspoken when it came to politics and his peers.

The composer, in a new collaboration with the Grammy-winning choir The Crossing, uses the words of Jeff Bezos and William Penn to explore connections among farming, colonialism and capitalism.

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Grammy-winning baritone Will Liverman about his latest album — Show Me The Way — honoring women in classical music, past and present.

Mountain ballads have been a part of American mountain culture since the earliest English and Scottish settlers moved there more than 200 years ago. They were passed down through the oral tradition, as they were in reporter Laurin Penland's family --but that tradition is close to extinct in the U.S.

Want a great conversation-starter with a fan of Latin jazz? Ask, "What's your favorite pairing of conga and timbales?" Many long-standing percussion duos display seemingly telepathic interplay — the intensity of a runaway train mixed with the kind of swing that makes hips move by themselves. Picking five was a chore, but here they are.

Over the course of his life, Nat King Cole became a jazz innovator and an icon of American popular music. Take Five celebrates Cole's birthday — he was born on March 17, 1919 — with a "five-tool" (that's baseball lingo, we'll explain) approach, highlighting the breadth of his work.

Attempting to make your way into jazz is never easy, but the jazz writer and cultural critic Gary Giddins has rendered it a bit more approachable. His new book, Jazz, is a new guide for novice listeners and longtime fans alike. Giddins picks five songs from his list of 101 entry-way jazz recordings.