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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.
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The Mingus Big Band puts its own stamp on the music of legendary bassist Charles Mingus in concert from the Jazz Standard in New York City. Its repertoire comes from three seminal albums (Mingus Ah Um, Mingus Dynasty and Blues and Roots), all issued 50 years ago.
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On New Year's Eve in New Orleans, the Evan Christopher/Tom McDermott Danza Quartet held sway with a set of music that was anything but picayune. With a sousaphone-toting bassist and a tambourine-banging drummer, the quartet made the show an affair to remember.
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Jake Shimabukuro is a genre-demolishing artist who plays jazz, blues, funk, classical, bluegrass, folk, flamenco and rock. It's all with the mission of showing everyone that the ukulele is capable of much more than just traditional Hawaiian music. He performs a concert from San Francisco.
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Hiromi's Sonicbloom brought a high-energy kickoff to 2009's Toast of the Nation broadcast, as she performed a set from where all four members met: the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass. The quartet performs with High-Romantic lyricism, jazz-fusion electronics and arena-rock bombast.
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Pink Martini brought its eclectic stylings to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles this New Year's Eve. With a splash of orchestral strings, smooth lyrics and a swig of a cha-cha, Pink Martini had the crowd raising its glasses for more.
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For the 29th straight year, NPR Music and WBGO celebrated New Year's Eve with live jazz, all night long. Bands such as Pink Martini, the Charles Mingus Big Band and Hiromi's Sonicbloom ushered in the new year in four different time zones.
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