Patrick Jarenwattananon

A guitarist who sounds like no other, Mary Halvorson can both astound and confound, with craggy phrasing, strange pitch-bends and pedal effects galore. With two quintet albums out and a septet record due soon, she's at Newport this year as a composer and bandleader too. Her quintet resembles certain classic ...

Pianist Bill Charlap's trio is about as quintessentially "New York elegant" as it gets. At Newport, it's been drafted to accompany the reedman Bob Wilber, an esteemed elder who specializes in classic jazz styles. (You might specialize too if you were mentored by Sidney Bechet.) The presence of Newport favorite ...

As a whole, Terence Blanchard's high-functioning quintet reliably serves up sleek modernism in the form of post-bop jazz. Individually, its members are also becoming great composers: Blanchard's new album, Magnetic, features tunes from everyone in the band. The new repertoire sees Blanchard cop some electric feels for his trumpet. And ...

Here's the next great male jazz singer. He's got a booming delivery straight from vintage soul. He writes original tunes packed with metaphor and delivers authoritative versions of standards. It's little wonder Blue Note Records signed him for a new album this fall. The forthcoming Liquid Spirit is great, but ...

If you didn't manage to fly in, drive up or sneak your way aboard a yacht bound for coastal Rhode Island — well, we can't help you get to the 2013 Newport Jazz Festival. But if you're not near Aquidneck Island this weekend, you can still catch a ...

Major jazz gatherings such as the Newport Jazz Festival — which dates back to 1954 — have always relied on big names to attract visitors. The 2013 edition is no different, with headliners such as Wayne Shorter (with Herbie Hancock), Marcus Miller, Chick Corea, Eddie Palmieri and Esperanza Spalding.

But ...

It's been too long since we simply sat up and pointed out a few of the many new releases worth a set of ears. Luckily, the staff on weekends at All Things Considered thought the same. They invited me to sit down with host Jacki Lyden and play a few ...

Sometimes, the most important musicians are the ones farthest away from the spotlight.

Laurie Frink was a great trumpet player. Great enough to tour with jazz big bands led by Benny Goodman, Gerry Mulligan (where she played lead) and Maria Schneider; to be one ...

If you look at the cover art of new albums by flutists Nicole Mitchell and Anna Webber, you'll see crystals. On Percussive Mechanics, Webber depicts a handful of glass shards carefully arranged as if to create an abstract sculpture. On Aquarius, Mitchell wraps herself in a sting of ...

Jazz music has become a point of pride for the United States of America: a homegrown art form forged from folk traditions. But jazz recordings of American patriotic songs aren't abundant. Perhaps because many of jazz's foremost creators were black Americans who lived in a society which actively discriminated against ...

Just southeast of the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, Va., lies a compact neighborhood called Oregon Hill. Historically, it's been a (white) working-class part of town, affordable for students and various bohemian types. Recording engineer Lance Koehler was drawn to the place when he moved to Richmond from New ...

The trio of Joe Dyson (drums), Max Moran (bass) and Conun Pappas (piano) met in New Orleans' performing-arts high school, and have all gone on to careers in music. Together, they've worked as Donald Harrison's rhythm section before they could legally drink, and in 2012 released a self-titled debut album ...

The cultural center 92Y Tribeca closes this summer after five years, but not before one more double-bill from The Checkout: Live.

Clarinetist and saxophone player Don Byron has a way of homing in on a departed artist's legacy and transforming it with intelligence and adventure. Having already dedicated ...

Among the vestment racks, satchel purveyors and art galleries of New York's SoHo neighborhood lies a small merchant unlike its neighbors. It's called The Evolution Store, and it peddles, um, natural-history collectibles. You know, preserved insects, taxidermy, skulls and bones, remnants of marine creatures. It's as if a ...

We jazz fans tend to filter through a lot of names. For every Sonny Rollins or Wes Montgomery on the cover of an album, there might be two, three, four, five, eight, 14 more musicians backing him or her. Slowly, we begin to string together the works of these sidemen, ...

Among jazz musicians, especially in New York City, pianist Kenny Barron is considered an institution. He spent years in bands led by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Yusef Lateef and Stan Getz, and brings that wisdom to every note. He's put out dozens of albums, continues to write ...

Mulgrew Miller, whose supple touch and thorough command made him a leading jazz pianist, died early Wednesday. His death was related to a stroke he suffered a week earlier, according to saxophonist David Demsey, coordinator of jazz studies at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., where Miller served ...

Our friends at Deceptive Cadence, NPR Music's classical blog, are celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Rite of Spring all this week. You'd be well-advised to wander on over there and check it out.

When I first heard about their plan, I immediately thought about Charlie Parker. Bird ...

A 100-year-old ballet, composed by a Russian for a French audience, has become something of a jazz standard.

Igor Stravinsky's orchestral score for The Rite of Spring has been interpolated on record by musicians like Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane and Hubert Laws. Many, many more knew the Rite, ...

Ever since he started becoming one of the best alto saxophone players in the world, Miguel Zenón has drawn influence from his upbringing in Puerto Rico. Folk melodies, forms and rhythms have inspired many of his technically astounding yet immediately gratifying works. So it makes sense that he's ...