Tom Moon
Tom Moon has been writing about pop, rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop and the music of the world since 1983.
He is the author of the New York Times bestseller 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die (Workman Publishing), and a contributor to other books including The Final Four of Everything.
A saxophonist whose professional credits include stints on cruise ships and several tours with the Maynard Ferguson orchestra, Moon served as music critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 until 2004. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Blender, Spin, Vibe, Harp and other publications, and has won several awards, including two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Music Journalism awards. He has contributed to NPR's All Things Considered since 1996.
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On his second album, Unorthodox Jukebox, Mars traverses the pop landscape, pulling in far-flung influences and making them his own.
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On Matane Malit, the singer and her group offers a transfixing balance of old and new, laying expansive instrumentation over traditional Albanian folk melodies.
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The Swedish jazz trio sculpts epic soundscapes on its first posthumous album, released four years after pianist Esbjorn Svensson's death.
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Two recent albums, from Don Byron's New Gospel Quintet and Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, offer contrasting perspectives on the intersection of two quintessentially American music styles.
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The band's fourth album is the product of a cross-country sojourn by singer Erika Wennerstrom.
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The Philadelphia sextet uses the indie-rock toolkit in creative, subversive, counterintuitive ways on its latest record, Be the Void.
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Wilson's new project, the musical equivalent of a landscape painting, took four years to finish.
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The new album by the L.A. punk band-turned-mariachi ensemble is lively and surprisingly kitsch-free.
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James Farm isn't a person, but the name of a jazz supergroup comprising saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Eric Harland. The band's self-titled debut is complex and truly collaborative.
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Probably best known for her work with the Grammy-winning jazz star Esperanza Spalding, the singer crafts something profound on The Lost and Found.