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Moving away from the '70s-style avant-funk of its earlier releases, the Michigan band NOMO mixes the severity of vintage analog electronics with organic, funky Afro-jazz to create a playful and cerebral hybrid. "Brainwave," from the band's recent Ghost Rock, is perhaps the most concentrated, concise demonstration of this fusion.

Alumni of Gillespie's many different bands still get together to ensure that his dazzling songwriting gets heard with the power and verve it demands. The Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars (the big-band edition) played a special celebration with the vocal quartet New York Voices, live from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to ring in 2009.

Grammy Award-winning jazz musician Freddie Hubbard has died at the age of 70. He collaborated with such greats as John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Hubbard had been hospitalized since a heart attack last month.

Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, son of Indian immigrants, says he didn't think about his ethnic identity growing up. But on his new album Kinsmen, he and other like-minded South Asian American jazz musicians, fuse American jazz with a global sound that embraces the music of India.

This year's oldest Grammy nominee is Delta blues pianist Pinetop Perkins. He's played with the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters. He says he even performed for a U.S. president at the White House — though at 95, he can't remember which one.

With her wispy, delicate voice, Dearie was a darling of the jazz world for decades. Her biggest hit was "I'm Hip," and she even recorded with Schoolhouse Rock. The cabaret singer and pianist died Saturday of natural causes in her New York City home. She was 82.

Originally released in 1961, electric guitarist Grant Green's first album with Blue Note Records, Grant's First Stand, has been reissued. Green has a solid swinger's knack for skippy, airborne jazz rhythms, but some of his lines wouldn't sound out of place in a Chicago blues bar.

Over the course of 70 years, more than 60 albums and four Grammys, The Blind Boys of Alabama's members become synonymous with gospel soul. The innovation never ends, however, as they infuse their new album, Down in New Orleans, with Dixieland jazz, funk and R&B.

After taking a break from touring with the bluesy rock duo The Black Keys, Auerbach produced his first solo album, Keep It Hid, from his self-built analog recording studio. Driven by reverb and riffs, Auerbach's solo work sounds authentic, blunt and powerful.

Jeff "Tain" Watts, an original member of the Wynton Marsalis quintet, has released an album titled Watts. But it's no ego trip; the disc is inspired, at least in part, by L.A.'s Watts neighborhood.