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Berklee-educated jazz keyboardist Marco Benevento is defined by two things players with similar training often strive to avoid: jam-band associations and plainspoken, hooky melodies. In "Golden," he applies jazz principles to a My Morning Jacket staple.

The pianist for the BMI/New York Jazz Composers Orchestra is also a singer and a former musical director at an Episcopal church. Her latest studio album elaborates on familiar jazz forms while embracing sacred texts, including a piece for Easter vespers.

After more than a decade of jamming, improvising and experimenting with sound, Benevento has discovered his own way into music by combining the thrust of rock, the questing of jazz and the experimental ecstasy of jam. Hear his trio cover Deerhoof and Leonard Cohen in a session.

Ever since the new "Queen of Blues" made her debut at age 19, she's been working to re-create the blues for a new generation. On Copeland's latest release, Never Going Back, she incorporates pop and jazz into her soulful singing, which conveys a message of inspiration and empowerment for the modern woman.

Drummer Matt Wilson calls his quartet Arts and Crafts because it makes music from scratch. From his "Scenic Route" to bassist Martin Wind's "Cruise Blues" (music for the trip of life) to Carl Sandburg's "Bubbles," this band keeps it musical and fun.

A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane and his powerful quartet, remains a towering and seemingly untouchable jazz classic. But the virtuosic genre-benders in the Turtle Island Quartet have done it justice, re-working the seminal album for strings and winning a Grammy for their trouble. They perform a live version on this week's JazzSet.

On this edition of All Songs Considered Sonic Youth,Bat For Lashes, Mamer, Marianne Dissard, Mulatu Astatke and Heliocentrics, and Manchester Orchestra.

World-renowned trumpet visionary Jon Hassell composes what he calls Fourth World music. It's an innovative sound that melds various ethnic styles, particularly African and Asian, with electronic techniques. On World Cafe, his band performs three songs from his new album in a session with host David Dye.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new albums: Booker T. Jones's Potato Hole, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records, whose roster once included heavyweights Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. Singers were a rarity, but Sheila Jordan has outlasted them all.