Lars Gotrich

"This morning thing's not really working for me," says guitarist/vocalist Ira Kaplan. Well, too bad. Yo La Tengo played the music you hear between stories live.

Sharks in Australia have shown an appreciation for AC/DC. Here are five more songs they might like.

No, the title isn't just a clever pun. Like John Coltrane and the saxophone, Miles Davis' figure looms large over our ideas about jazz trumpet. But there are hidden secrets in the horn and a host of musical linguists uncovering new languages for an instrument imbued with a bop history. Here are five of the best examples.

When Coleman's imprint of fire-brazed melodicism strikes you, you may very well have his tunes stuck in your head all night long.

Throughout the '80s and early '90s, John Zorn and Bill Laswell were at the epicenter of extreme music. Hear five bands that take the ferocity of '60s free jazz and match it with pummeling death metal.

Jazz and beer are natural companions, so we asked the Washington City Paper's "Beerspotter" to pair bottles with records by Charles Mingus, Sun Ra and more.

In the 1960s, European musicians began to reinvent the occasionally strident sounds of American avant-garde jazz to suit their own ideas. Norway, in particular, produced its own distinct regional aesthetic — no doubt influenced by its icy landscape.

Whether openly or covertly, all music types love this time of year. It's list-making season. Those of us behind the Take Five series wanted to get in on the act, too. So we asked WBGO, WDUQ and Jazz24 to share their top picks of 2008 with a couple more from the series curators.

Rock music may give the electric guitar fire, but avant-garde jazz musicians often re-think the instrument beyond its basic, melody- and rhythm-based functions. Here are five musicians who eschew standard conventions and instead approach the guitar as a device of pure sound.