Nick Morrison

The advent of bebop added a fresh sound to American music. It also added new voices to some metropolitan radio stations: the late-night jazz DJs who specialized in presenting this new music to their fellow hipster nightflies. Appreciative musicians often wrote them tributes like these.

When Juan de Marcos González teamed up with Ry Cooder to create Buena Vista Social Club, he became internationally known almost overnight. Watch the bandleader in this three-song set.

Many jazz standards are themselves about making lists. Here are five of them, including Louis Armstrong's take on "Let's Do It," Johnny Hartman's version of "These Foolish Things" and a classic reading of Jobim's "Waters of March."

The 26-year-old jazz guitarist has been making a name for himself ever since he joined the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. Watch him perform the title tune from his album Takin' It There.

Starting in the 1920s, Hawkins made an afterthought of an instrument into one of the sounds we most identify with jazz. He also straddled the era of big band swing and later developments like bebop. Here are five songs that illustrate his genius.

There isn't a modern-day pianist with a greater love for Tin Pan Alley than Bill Charlap. Watch him take circuitous routes through "All the Things You Are" and "Sophisticated Lady."

Decades after Django Reinhardt pioneered his distinct style of guitar-propelled swing, it's being adapted by bands like these. Hear what Frank Vignola, John Jorgensen, the Hot Club of Detroit and others are doing with the idiom.

One of contemporary jazz's most renowned pianists dazzles during his recent visit to KPLU's studios in Seattle. Watch Chestnut work magic throughout this three-song solo set.

With a sweetly ferocious style, the alto saxophonist bridged the post-bop of the 1950s and '60s to the jazz fusion of the '70s and beyond. For the anniversary of his birth, hear some of the recordings which made him jazz royalty.

The jazz singer runs through an infectious medley of "I Want to Be Happy" and "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" during a visit to the KPLU studios in Seattle.