Kevin Whitehead

In the 1970s and '80s, Cables was the pianist of choice for saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Art Pepper; Pepper called him his favorite pianist. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Cables' new trio album, My Muse, is so unassumingly good, you could miss just how good it is.

For Miles, the better he knows how a tune works, the less he has to play to put it across

The freewheeling saxophonist and his small group from the 1970s came together for a live concert in 2007 -- their first together in more than two decades. Now, a recording has been posthumously released on CD, and critic Kevin Whitehead says it's like they never went away.

Guaraldi had range, as well as an instrumental hit right when jazz was vanishing from AM radio.

The jazz trio returns to covering classic rock, folk and pop tunes on its latest album, Where Do You Start. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the band's take on Elvis Costello, Nick Drake, Sonny Rollins and more.

Julio Cortazar's book Rayuela is expansive, smart, breezy, romantic and occasionally reminiscent of a disturbing dream. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says that Miguel Zenon and Laurent Coq's Rayuela-inspired album lands on all those squares.

Garbarek helped the ECM label find its emerging voice 40 years ago. A new box set of early albums captures the saxophonist's forming sound — austere and astringent.

Scholar and fan Ryan Truesdell has turned unheard Evans scores into richly textured works.

Davis' bluesy alto sax rasp is straight out of Charlie Parker's playbook, but he makes it his own in a new live recording from the Smalls Jazz Club.

The jazz musician didn't make his burden any lighter by choosing to play tenor and soprano saxophones -- the same instruments his father, John Coltrane, indelibly stamped. But critic Kevin Whitehead says he speaks in his own voice on the album Spirit Fiction.