If you want a part-time lover, listen to Stevie Wonder. If you want a private dancer, groove to Tina Turner. If you want "music without a whole lot of stylistic baggage," you better check out Autechre. As mischievous lads in Manchester, England, Sean Booth and Rob Brown bonded over a cheap synthe

Dark, Hi-tech, Intense, Machinistic, Melancholy

Michael Tippett was never satisfied with one kind of musical form. Operas, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, choral works, string quartets -- he dabbled in them all. Even within a single work, he was fond of combining numerous influences, from Beethoven to English folk music to reggae to rap. Tippett's

20th-century music, Composed, Eclectic, Intense, Layered, Sensual

Intertwining instrumental sounds, texts, and environmental samples, Charles Amirkhanian creates dreamy and disjointed durations of immersive experience. A synthesis of electronic and acoustic effects, voices and background noise, his compositions strive to capture listeners' bodies and minds in tonal

Collage, Dreamy, Eclectic, Intense, Layered, Musique concrete

He earned his name from the frenzied, high-pitched solos that make so many heads spin. By climbing into the trumpet's two highest registers and belting out syncopated feats of harmonic daring, Dizzy Gillespie developed an indubitably revolutionary sound. Bebop, that high-speed, rhythmically and tonal

Bebop, Ebullient, Ecstatic, Improvised, Intense, Pioneering, Swing/big band