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The Los Angeles-based band refurbishes an enigmatic, but entrancing piece by the late Julius Eastman, whose music is enjoying a well-deserved resurgence.

With so much emphasis on virtuosity in jazz, artists who pare their musical arsenals down to the soul-baring essentials usually prove the most alluring. Such is the case with Gretchen Parlato, who taps into Wayne Shorter's adventurism with her thoughtful lyrics, which touch on the joys of inward search.

Long before Louis Armstrong came along, the trumpet and New Orleans were intertwined. For local jazz legend Nicholas Payton, the instrument represents the essence of the Crescent City.

Musician Allen Toussaint is a native son of New Orleans. He plans to return in the New Year. He lost a piano the storm. As for his next one: "I'm going to put it on the second floor this time... we won't be flirting with water anymore."

Every time Andrew Hill takes a seat behind a piano, the jazz world takes note. "Time Lines" speaks to his brilliance at teetering between the worlds of the blues and the abstract. And it's one of the funkiest compositions in Hill's massive repertoire.

The New Orleans Social Club, a loose affiliation of famed New Orleans musicians, are trying to restore a bit of the city's musical heritage with a new CD — and in the process, restore a piece of their own lives washed away by Hurricane Katrina.

One day, musicologist John Work happened to record an obscure street singer's blues talent. Discovering that field recording leads commentator Bruce Nemerov to reflect on how the blues were marketed before World War II.

Following jazz great Ray Brown and funk's Bootsy Collins, Christian McBride is building on his predecessors' bass work. He McBride finds plenty of room to explore "the groove underneath — the bottom."

For all the song's double-entendres and social politics, Patricia Barber's "Narcissus" doubles as one of those sensual rhapsodies that seem perfect for a late night on some honky-tonk bar's jukebox.

In 1960s Communist Romania, violinist Ion Petre Stoican was struggling to establish himself in the Bucharest wedding market. But when he unwittingly helped snare a highly sought-after spy, Stoican asked for one reward: to record an album with the state-operated label, Electrecord.