Kevin Whitehead

Hall and Haden performed as a duo at a concert in Montreal in 1990. Plans to release the album, Charlie Haden - Jim Hall, were in place before both artists passed away within the last year.

Eight months before he died of cancer, John Coltrane played a concert at Temple University in Philadelphia that proved too much for some listeners.

Now that the pianist's Fats Waller project tours and has a new album, Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead admits to mixed feelings.

Turner's new quartet album Lathe of Heaven gets its name from Ursula K. LeGuin's novel. A lot of action happens at thoughtful medium tempos, and there's beautiful dissonance in the two-horn harmonies.

Before Ponty came to the States, he already had his concept. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the digital reissue of Sunday Walk.

Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two albums by Thelonious Monk jazz competition winners: Melissa Aldana and Joshua Redman.

On The Late Show, a set of previously unheard solo music from 1979, the jazz pianist employs techniques like suspenseful dropouts. He had a rare ability to sound archaic — and way ahead of his time.

The brass players' debut album is a set of pieces by Seattle-based composer and improviser Wayne Horvitz

Jazz pianist, bandleader and composer Horace Silver died Wednesday at age 85. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead says that Silver had been off the scene awhile, but his influence is as strong as ever.

Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society's Man Dance and its sequel Barbeque Dog are now available again as downloads, after being out of print for ages.

Rosenthal has played George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" solo and with symphonic and jazz orchestras. Now he's recorded a version for jazz trio as part of an all-Gershwin album.

That June, Miles Davis played four nights at the New York rock palace Fillmore East. Those performances are now out in full for the first time.

Hart has recorded hundreds of albums, backing, among many others, pianist Herbie Hancock. But he sometimes records under his own name too, especially now that he has a well-seasoned quartet.

On Feb. 5, 1953, Powell was uncommunicative face to face at the New York jazz club Birdland. But when he sat at the keys, it was a whole other story.

Starting in the late 1960s, the jazz saxophonist produced a series of recordings that came out on the musicians-owned Strata-East label. Those seven albums are now collected in a box set.

Eric Dolphy's creativity was exploding early in 1964, and he was finding more players who could keep up. Out to Lunch is free and focused, dissonant and catchy, wide open and swinging all at once.

There's something tender and specific about the ways elders like Frank Wess shaped their notes.

On Sixteen Sunsets, the soprano saxophonist varies and honors melody like Billie Holiday.

On Gilchrist's The View From Here, go-go dance beats inform his piano the same way freight-train boogie-woogie does.

The drummer known as "Klook" was a founder of bebop — and a man endlessly open to possibilities.