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Ed Palermo first saw Frank Zappa perform in 1969. Since the musician's untimely death in 1993, Palermo has arranged 150 Zappa tunes for The Ed Palermo Big Band. The Big Band's latest CD is Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance.

In 1935, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote music for what seemed to be a happy-go-lucky ballet, but the Soviet government did not agree. The Russian National Orchestra plays The Ballet Suite No. 1 on its 2006 American tour. Carlo Ponti conducts at the University of California-Davis.

Singer Shara Worden of the group My Brightest Diamond comes to pop music from a background in opera and performance art. She also serves as a back-up vocalist to the iconoclastic singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. The result, says critic Jim Fusilli, is alluring and adventurous, as in the new Bring Me the Workhorse.

The music world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Juilliard Quartet Wednesday. Host Fred Child talks with the quartet's first violinist, Joel Smirnoff. And, from a 1987 Juilliard Quartet recording, we hear Bach's Contrapuncti Nos. 2, 7 and 9 from The Art of the Fugue.

Singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis has a hauntingly soulful voice. Her latest CD, Rabbit Fur Coat is inspired by her lifelong love for folk, country and Southern gospel, with beautifully crafted story songs. Hear Lewis in a full concert recorded live from Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club.

French-born Helene Grimaud is busy this season. She has a new CD, Reflection, and her autobiography, Wild Harmonies, has been published in English. The works explore the pianist's different loves, in both her musical and personal life.

Art Tatum was such a towering figure that it's easy to wonder whether he did things differently when he was off-duty and out of the spotlight. What did he sound like playing a private party or an after-hours club, that jazzman's preferred hangout, in the company of friends?

In concert in Oregon at Portland Piano International, Stephen Hough plays Maurice Ravel's "Alborada del Gracioso."

Grizzly Bear's gorgeously hazy second disc is a major leap forward: Titled Yellow House, it benefits from a monumental upgrade in production values, as well as the presence of tight, focused songs that place the band's experimental tendencies into a more natural-sounding melodic context.

Members of the Bloods and Crips street gangs in Los Angeles put aside their feuding, at least temporarily, to represent their L.A. neighborhoods on a new CD and DVD. It's still gangsta rap — filled with violent and sexist imagery — but gang members say the project is proof they can profit by getting along.