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Conductor Marin Alsop examines the rarely heard music from early in Aaron Copland's career. With an ear toward Copland's bold and sometimes jazzy rhythms, Alsop says that listeners can hear hints of the wide expanses that would later open up in music such as Appalachian Spring.

Washington, D.C., is known more for suits than fun, but it also has a long history as a home to diverse styles of music — from Duke Ellington to hardcore to go-go — and some of the hottest guitarists to ever touch the fretboard: Roy Clark, Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton. Today, the city is home to an experimental music scene that's thriving under D.C.'s official radar.

Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, son of Indian immigrants, says he didn't think about his ethnic identity growing up. But on his new album Kinsmen, he and other like-minded South Asian American jazz musicians, fuse American jazz with a global sound that embraces the music of India.

The world-famous cellist has a challenge for his fans and fellow musicians: Get online and produce a virtual collaboration with him. Simply download Ma playing "Dona Nobis Pacem," add new music, mix and then upload it back to the site, where the rest of the submissions can be heard. Ma says he'll play music, in person, with the winner.

Though best known for their textured, electronica-infused pop, the German rockers have explored a wide variety of styles in over 20 years together. They perform a set of songs from 2008's The Devil, You + Me — their first album in six years — at WXPN.

The Gourds' members present their music in familiar roots-rock wrappings, but nothing about the band is typical. Cheating hearts or lovesick blues don't dominate the band's landscape; instead, this is a brainy and obtuse bunch, and its songs reflect that fact. Hear the band perform new material from KUT.

He still isn't very well-known in the U.S., but Solal is considered one of the greatest living European jazz musicians. And at 81, the pianist still keeps a schedule of concerts and club gigs that would wear out someone half his age.

Nichols just released his solo debut, The Last Pale Light in the West. Its songs were inspired by Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, a novel about a teenage boy's adventures around the Texas-Mexico border in the mid-1800s.

Reed is relatively new to the national jazz scene, but he's been singing for more than 50 years. After a life of addiction and incarceration, Reed has emerged triumphant, ready for his moment in the spotlight. With accompanist Gary Fisher, Reed performs "Sleeping Bee" and "Ask Me Now" before he and host Marian McPartland get together on Ellington's "All Too Soon."

Produced by Jamaica's legendary duo Sly & Robbie, Michael Franti and Spearhead's new album, All Rebel Rockers, channels Franti's politically motivated energy into a non-stop, reggae-fueled party. He performs a song he wrote for his son in a session from WXPN.