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NPR's Tavis Smiley talks with composer and saxophonist Joshua Redman, artistic director of the San Francisco Jazz Collective. Redman has chosen to highlight the work of "free jazz" pioneer Ornette Coleman for the Collective's inaugural season. He's recruited highly respected musicians for the venture: Bobby Hutcherson, Nicholas Payton, Miguel Zenon, Josh Roseman, Renee Rosnes, Robert Hurst and Brian Blade are all tapped to participate.

This past week, bassist and cellist Percy Heath was honored with a "Beacons in Jazz" award from the New School University in New York. NPR's Liane Hansen speaks with the longtime member of the Modern Jazz Quartet who still performs with the Heath Brothers, and has only now at the age of 80 released his first solo CD: A Love Song is on Daddy Jazz Records.

On Susan Werner's newest CD, her sixth, the singer-songwriter moves distinctively away from folk and toward the jazzy American songbook style recently embraced by artists such as Rod Stewart and Norah Jones. NPR's Susan Stamberg reports. Hear three selections from Werner's I Can't Be New.

Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd created a new CD that weaves together interviews with people in airports around the world with jazz and hip hop music. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Iyer and Ladd.

Watch the legendary jazz bassist and members of his trio perform from The Blue Note's prestigious stage.

It's a labor of love, years in the making — Grammy-winning producer, composer and keyboardist Jason Miles brings together a stellar cast of "smooth" jazz legends on the compilation CD Coast to Coast.

Rock Historian Ed Ward on the history of African-American musicians in Nashville. He plays music from Night Train to Nashville a double CD put out by the Country Music Hall of Fame (in conjunction with a Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Show).

Jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas releases Strange Liberation, a CD of original compositions played by his quintet. The 40-year-old Douglas is joined on the record by Bill Frisell, the well-traveled guitarist who has worked with Brian Eno and Elvis Costello. Tom Moon has a review.

For five decades, Dave Frishberg has been crafting deftly worded, wry songs that harken back to the golden age of the musical. The jazz composer says he learned the art of musical wit from Broadway legend Frank Loesser. For Intersections, a series on artists' influences, NPR's Ketzel Levine reports.

NPR's Tavis Smiley talks with trombonist Wayne Henderson, the originator of the Jazz Crusaders, about their latest CD Soul Axess and his love affair with "fusion" jazz music.