Music

If the mission of World Cafe's Sense of Place is to capture the essence of great musical cities around the globe through the musicians who live there, there's no better stop than Havana, Cuba. Whether it's salsa, rumba or jazz played in the streets, restaurants and clubs, music is everywhere.

When Joshua Redman plays Boston, it's a homecoming. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University and quickly won the 1991 Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition. Warner Brothers signed him to make a string of successful albums.

Here's a typical Saturday night for a music fan in Manhattan: You go grab some dinner, and then go to a show. You hang out there for an hour or two, enjoy the music and then leave, right? But what would happen if, instead, the musicians onstage took turns soloing for an hour or more apiece, and you wound up staying until dawn?

Samir Chatterjee is a tabla player, and every spring, he invites musicians from India and elsewhere to come to New York for marathon concerts that start in the early evening and last all night long.

Southern rhythms have always been in Patterson Hood's blood. Born in Alabama as the son of David Hood, a bassist for the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, young Patterson started writing songs at age 8.

When Bloc Party performed this live session for KCRW, it was the first time any of us had heard songs from the band's latest album, Four, aside from the single "Octopus." While "Octopus" is a driving, punk-infused dance track similar to Bloc Party's previous work, the rest of Four seemed more influenced by '90s rock and metal. It was one of the loudest live sessions KCRW has hosted in recent memory, and that's a compliment.

Here's the band's performance of "Octopus."