Daily Schedule

Your morning companion from NPR and the WNYC Newsroom, with world news, local features, and weather updates.

NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik talks about the firing of Jill Abramson and this weekend's developments at the Times. Sex advice columnist Dan Savage is also the author of American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics. Plus: what New Yorkers leave behind in cabs; and the saga of the closing of reBar.

The Peabody Award-winning program features Terry Gross’ fearless and insightful interviews with big names in pop culture, politics and the arts.

A wrap-up of the day’s news, with features and interviews about the latest developments in New York City and around the world, from NPR and the WNYC newsroom.

A wrap-up of the day’s news, with features and interviews about the latest developments in New York City and around the world, from NPR and the WNYC newsroom.

In this episode: Memorial Day is a week off, so it’s time to start thinking summer. And every summer has its jams. Writer Rich Juzwiak asked his readers at Gawker: “What Will Your Summer Jams Be?” and got hundreds of responses; Juzwiak walks Soundcheck host John Schaefer through a few of them.

Then: Yoav Goren pioneered the genre of original Epic Music for blockbuster movie trailers. Despite almost never being used in the films themselves, Epic Music has a rapidly growing and fervent fan base and generates millions of plays on YouTube. Goren tells Soundcheck about the new “epic music” compilation Trailerhead: NU EPIQ.

And: The Canadian indie rock band Tokyo Police Club has flirted with pop music before. Now they're going steady with it. Dance rhythms and big hooks fill their new album Forcefield, and they'll play an electric set in the Soundcheck studio.

For this New Sounds, listen to hybrid groups that use jazzy-looking instruments, but throw in traditional folk music, chamber music, and a splash of rock.  Listen to jazz-ish music from the Swiss quintet, pommelHORSE, whose clarinets and saxes are up front, but there’s also Fender Rhodes, bass and drums and distortion pedals.  Then, listen to music by the London-based trumpeter and bandleader Yazz Ahmed who melds jazz with the sounds of her Arabic heritage on her record “Finding My Way Home.” Also, listen to near-Eastern inflected music from the New York-based Iraqi-American trumpeter Amir Elsaffar.  Plus music from the Finnish-Franco-Argentine outfit, IF trio, who mix jazz, real and imaginary traditional music, as well as rock.  That, and more.