Music

Playing Mozart to young children will make them smarter, right?

Probably not. When it comes to media hype and intuitions about intelligence and early childhood, some skepticism is in order. A paper published just this month by John Protzko, Joshua Aronson and Clancy Blair at NYU reviews dozens of studies on a topic likely to be of interest to parents, educators, and policy-makers alike: what, if anything, one can do in the first five years of life to raise a child's intelligence.

Jose James knows jazz. The son of a Panamanian jazz saxophonist, he studied at the prestigious New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, was a finalist in 2004's Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocalist Competition and recently toured with legendary jazz pianist McCoy Tyner.

Although the six members of the Kopecky Family Band aren't related by blood, they function with a sense of harmony common in family outfits. Formed in 2007, the group released a series of EPs before finally releasing its first full-length album, Kids Raising Kids, in 2012.

Update at 6:14 p.m. ET. Backing Off?

Singer Jose James releases his album No Beginning, No End today. For a little while longer, you can still hear it via NPR Music's First Listen series. Plus, James recently gave an interview to host Melissa Block for today's episode of All Things Considered.