Patrick Jarenwattananon

Henry Butler comes from a line of New Orleans piano geniuses, virtuosi who command any style under the syncopated sun. Steven Bernstein comes from a career of collaboration, blowing a slide trumpet all over downtown New York and writing arrangements for just about any medium and context. Both share a ...

If you've ever gone to the NYC Winter Jazzfest — specifically, the marathon of overlapping sets in roughly adjacent venues that sometimes lasts more than eight hours per night — you know that you're bombarded with choices. Stay in one theater where it's warm, or graze for three songs and ...

As a pianist and bandleader, Marian McPartland was a decorated jazz artist, recording and performing for well over half a century. At the same time, she was one of the music's great champions, as host of NPR's Piano Jazz for 33 years.

On what would have been her 96th birthday, ...

By necessity, the early jazz pioneers knew how to make music for revelers. So it made sense that the tunes of Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver were on the bill for the New Year's Eve bash of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Morton was an accomplished arranger, Oliver a virtuoso ...

It started as a bongo beat — a nod to James Brown, just after his death in late 2006. Then came a few signature riffs. And an ecstatic response from the crowd. Before long, the Godfather of Soul was permanently embedded in the Evolution Ensemble's repertoire. For leader Dee Alexander, ...

Jon Batiste has a way with exits, as musicians from New Orleans tend to. Days before his day-ending set at the 2014 Newport Jazz Festival, the pianist and singer walked out of The Colbert Report's theater with a studio audience and a dancing Stephen Colbert in tow. And following ...

In the dead of January in the Northeast, New York City's Winter Jazzfest manages a minor miracle. Over the course of two marathon nights, it brings crowds in the thousands out to jam-packed theaters and clubs to see dozens of varied and sundry bands.

On the eve of Winter Jazzfest ...

Every year, NPR Music invites a handful of the world's top keyboard players to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. We ask them to play some of their favorite holiday music for the audience — solo — and the recording becomes the public radio special A Jazz ...

Ellis Marsalis is a father figure of modern jazz — in quite a few ways. As a pianist, he was among the first generation of musicians to bring bebop to New Orleans, and even worked with Ornette Coleman before the saxophonist recorded his landmarks of free jazz. As an educator, ...

What would it sound like if someone bridged the gap between big band jazz and classic hip-hop anthems? Between Oliver Nelson and A Tribe Called Quest; between Freddie Hubbard and J. Dilla? One answer is offered by producer/emcee Brian "Raydar" Ellis and trumpeter Igmar Thomas. Between originals, standard jazz repertoire ...

Jon Batiste is from New Orleans, where a street parade might assemble around the corner on any given day. Evidently, he likes a good walkabout: He's liable to lead his band at a guerrilla concert in the New York City subway, or out of a venue, or — as he ...

People in jazz circles often talk about complexity, and often as an accusation. That guy's music is too complex! It's too far removed from the blues! It sounds like math! Bah!

If you went under the hood, you could probably level some of those charges at alto saxophonist Miguel ...

When Miles Davis returned to performing in the early 1980s, he asked his former bandmate and master composer, Wayne Shorter, to write something for him. What came out was a large ensemble work too unwieldy for Davis, and Shorter put it back on his shelf. "I asked him ...

The iconic jazz record label Blue Note Records reached its 75th anniversary this year, and celebrated with an all-star concert featuring artists from its rich history and bright present. Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Lou Donaldson, and Bobby Hutcherson, whose Blue Note LPs defined a generation of jazz, were on hand; ...

In the late 1960s, saxophonist Wayne Shorter wrote a number of large ensemble works for his employer at the time, trumpeter Miles Davis. They were never recorded, and eventually forgotten. Decades later, Shorter, now considered one of jazz's greatest composers, dug up the music and handed it over to trumpeter ...

Every year for the last decade and a half, select groups of hot swing musicians have come from Europe to tour the U.S. The exact lineups change, but they all feature masters of the "gypsy jazz" — or jazz manouche — style pioneered by guitarist Django Reinhardt. In fact, ...

Building on the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra's recent trip to Cuba, managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis presents his newest large-scale work: Ochas, a suite for big band and Afro-Cuban percussion. He calls upon young superstar Pedrito Martinez, who brought along a trio of fellow hand percussionists, to execute ...

Perhaps you've heard of this new public media initiative created by NPR Music, WBGO and Jazz At Lincoln Center. It's called Jazz Night In America, and we're going to feature great performances and the stories behind them.

You may be wondering what exactly Jazz Night In America ...

Miguel Zenón possesses rare talent, both for the level of his alto saxophone virtuosity and the ability to make complex compositions immediate and accessible. But he's but one of many who moved to New York City to pursue jazz. And he's one of over one million New-York-area residents of Puerto ...

The saxophonist and composer Henry Threadgill, 70, has long been an standard-bearer for boundary-crossing music. In his wildly creative work, inspirations as disparate as rags, calypso and funk transmogrify into unique frameworks for improvisation. Pianist Jason Moran is one of his loyal fans — Threadgill is his favorite composer, he ...