Nate Chinen

The Late Show bandleader explains how he made a quintessential American anthem forged in national divisions new and how it speaks to the strength and diversity of our own society.

Roland Cazimero, along with his brother Robert, was a guiding force in Hawaiian music and culture since the mid-1970s.

The saxophonist, one of jazz's enlightened elders, reflects in an interview on his latest album with his New Quartet and on remaining in the moment while rifling through his back pages.

The jazz-vocal superhero moved to Michigan when she was only 3, but the city of her birth left an indelible impression. Hear it in the first single from her forthcoming album, Memphis.

The saxophonist opens up about the legacy of his father, Dewey Redman, and performs with Still Dreaming — his own nod to the quartet his dad once helped convene as an homage to Ornette Coleman.

Pianist Joanne Brackeen, guitarist Pat Metheny, singer Dianne Reeves and producer Todd Barkan will receive what is often described as the nations highest honor for jazz.

The vibraphonist announced his retirement at 74 with little warning. Still in possession of his quicksilver fluidity and deep intuition, he spoke with Jazz Night during his farewell tour.

This new jazz supergroup gives familiar fare by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix an unexpected new tilt.

The jazz giant reflects on his decision to release a sprawl of writings, recordings and other material to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in his old neighborhood of Harlem.

The low end has always been terra firma for Williams, one of the all-time great bassists in modern jazz. Hear highlights of a recent set with his post-bop ensemble, Something More.

The London-based percussionist and producer performs "Indefinite Leave To Remain," a song whose themes speak to the issue of cultural exchange in an era of high geopolitical tension.

Players like Moses Boyd, Shabaka Hutchings and Sarathy Korwar drive London's jazz scene forward with sounds from around the world. In March, SXSW hosted all three for an up-to-the minute dispatch.

In words as well as music, hear how seriously Bridgewater takes her role as a music mentor and how it connects to her own experience in the jazz lineage.

The trumpeter stretches into trap and electronics on Diaspora. Flutist Elena Pinderhughes guests on the soothing and locomotive first single.

"I thought that for the 10th anniversary, this would be one hell of a way to remind people that Record Store Day was also designed for jazz fans."

Hear how the artists honored by the NEA this year — Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Dave Holland, Dick Hyman and Ira Gitler — earned their stripes and paid their jazz dues.

The NPR Music staff spent Friday morning listening to the rapper's new album. Here are eight reactions to what will likely go down as one of the best albums of 2017.

Sinatra was well into his Rat Pack era, the reigning American embodiment of masculine suavity and aplomb, when he teamed up with the Brazilian maestro for one of the best albums of his career.

Nobody else sounds like this jazz band. Stream the forthcoming album from Steven Bernstein's long-running quartet now.

Monday night's presentation of the 2017 NEA Jazz Masters fellowships, coming under the shadow of a proposed presidential budget that would eliminate the NEA outright, mixed politics with grace.