Kevin Whitehead

Jazz pianist, bandleader and composer Horace Silver died Wednesday at age 85. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead says that Silver had been off the scene awhile, but his influence is as strong as ever. Hear an appreciation.

Rosenthal has played George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" solo and with symphonic and jazz orchestras. Now he's recorded a version for jazz trio as part of an all-Gershwin album.

That June, Miles Davis played four nights at the New York rock palace Fillmore East. Those performances are now out in full for the first time.

Hart has recorded hundreds of albums, backing, among many others, pianist Herbie Hancock. But he sometimes records under his own name too, especially now that he has a well-seasoned quartet.

On Feb. 5, 1953, Powell was uncommunicative face to face at the New York jazz club Birdland. But when he sat at the keys, it was a whole other story.

Starting in the late 1960s, the jazz saxophonist produced a series of recordings that came out on the musicians-owned Strata-East label. Those seven albums are now collected in a box set.

Eric Dolphy's creativity was exploding early in 1964, and he was finding more players who could keep up. Out to Lunch is free and focused, dissonant and catchy, wide open and swinging all at once.

On Sixteen Sunsets, the soprano saxophonist varies and honors melody like Billie Holiday.

On Gilchrist's The View From Here, go-go dance beats inform his piano the same way freight-train boogie-woogie does.

The drummer known as "Klook" was a founder of bebop — and a man endlessly open to possibilities.