Jonathan Leal, "Dreams in Double Time: On Rac...

The Bartered Bride, a comic opera by Bedrich Smetana, premiered in Prague on March 30, 1866. Its pastoral love story and setting in a rural Czech village eventually became an enduring symbol of Czech nationalism. In Visions of the Village: Ruralness, Identity, and Czech Opera (Ox ...  Show more

Rock 'n' roll appeared in the 1950s as the high-energy, electrically amplified music of young dancers and listeners, first in the United States and then around the globe, and from the beginning it symbolized more than music. First popularized as a marketing rubric to sell African ...  Show more

In 'Black Music', a collection of essays, liner notes and interviews from 1959 to 1967, Amiri Baraka captures the ferment, energy and excitement of the avant-garde jazz scene. Published while he still went by LeRoi Jones, it provides a composite picture of Baraka’s evolving thoug ...  Show more

A conversation about the best jazz albums of the year, and what they tell us about the genre’s future. Guests: Martin Johnson and Giovanni Russonello. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app he ...  Show more

A conversation about strong recent debuts, and how canon and community can be in tension. Guests: Giovanni Russonello and Marcus J. Moore. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://w ...  Show more

His music was dynamic, bold and idiosyncratic, setting a high bar for composers connecting sound and vision. Guests: Jon Pareles and Joshua Rothkopf. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app her ...  Show more