Kevin Whitehead

Before he was famous for popularizing bossa nova with "The Girl from Ipanema" in the early 1960s, saxophonist Stan Getz recorded with small jazz groups all through the '50s. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says a new reissue shows Getz was one of the best a playing pretty.

Marcus Printup isn't the first trumpeter to combined the trumpet and the harp. It's long been an instrument where jazz women could make their mark. A Time for Love is a quiet and cozy album with Printup's wife, harpist Riza Hequibal, but it's never dull.

In the 1940s, Charlie Parker, nicknamed "Bird," was a prime mover behind the new style of bebop, with its refined harmonies, offbeat rhythms and abstract melodies played at breakneck speed. On Bird Songs, Joe Lovano looks for new ways into Parker's material.

Air was a flagship of the 1970s avant-garde, but saxophonist Henry Threadgill, bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall first came together to play Scott Joplin's piano music. That and more are documented on a massive eight-CD box set of Threadgill's music.

Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead picks CDs, books and a DVD for the jazz lover on your list this holiday season. His selections include a book of Sonny Rollins photographs and music from the first season of the HBO series Treme.

Howard's new record, Drum Lore, was inspired by a question a workshop student once asked him: Why are you teaching a composition class when you're a drummer? So Howard devotes the new album to tunes written by jazz percussionists.

Joost Buis' tunes are clean and true, and still let weird details nibble at the edges on Zooming. That sort of despoiling playfulness typifies a lot of Hollands improvised music: Just because you're serious doesn't mean you have to be serious all the time.

As a composer, Coleman has been heavily influenced by James Brown's funk. You wouldn't mistake Coleman's band Five Elements for J.B.'s, but like the Godfather of Soul, he goes in for fast, jittery beats on Harvesting Semblances and Affinities.

Dutch composer, saxophonist, bass clarinetist and bandleader Willem Breuker died in Amsterdam last Friday. He was 65. Breuer led his own big band while also composing music for films, theater and classical ensembles. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead looks back at Breuker, who he says helped shape and define modern Dutch music.

From one engagement to the next, saxophonist Lee Konitz rarely uses the same combination twice. But a few years ago, he began collaborating with a young trio known as Minsarah, which he invited to join him at the Village Vanguard last year. Three new knot recordings radiate the joy of making music in every note.