Counting fans among lovers of straight-ahead jazz, the avant-garde and jam bands, Charlie Hunter has spent more than a decade defining his guitar style. In a session from Jazz24, Hunter unveils his new approach to technique that serves the music first.

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From before bebop to the present day, some of the best jazz albums of all time have been issued by Blue Note Records. The label celebrates its 70th anniversary this week, and to honor the occasion, pianist Bill Charlap has chosen five of his all-time favorite Blue Note songs.

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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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A guitarist whose harmonic ideas and sinuous, legato approach make him readily identifiable, Rosenwinkel is arguably the most beloved jazz guitarist of his generation. He returns to New York and the Vanguard stage leading his quartet.

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We start the new year with a new mix, featuring an exclusive preview of Andrew Bird's latest album, Noble Beast. The classically trained violinist and singer performs a quirky mix of whistled melodies, Gypsy ballads, folk and art-rock. We've got the song "Oh No" here, but you can also hear the entire album as part of our "first listen" series. Also on the show: classic folk-rock singer Benjy Ferree, the Afro-funk rhythms of Chopteeth, an eclectic mixtape from Malawi-born singer Esau Mwamwaya, the haunting guitars of Begushkin, and the jazz trio Bad Plus covers the music of Pink Floyd.

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The band's members spend most of their work days (and nights) playing music for hire. But once a week, these Nashville studio veterans get together to play whatever they want.

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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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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.

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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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A cornetist and jazz scholar, Sudhalter remembers overlooked cornetist Bix Beiderbecke with Marian McPartland. Beiderbecke had a short career in the 1920s, but he influenced a wide spectrum of artists, from Hoagy Carmichael to Miles Davis. McPartland plays Beiderbecke's most famous piano composition, "In a Mist," before getting together with Sudhalter on "Davenport Blues."

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At age 86, NEA Jazz Master Frank Wess has a ball leading a dream band with Terell Stafford on trumpet. Wess doubles on saxophone and flute, coming full circle to Washington, D.C., the city where he first took his studies seriously.

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Cross-pollination of excellent musicians made for some amazing jazz in 2008. The year's best CDs feature numerous musicians collaborating with each other on a wide variety of recordings. Hearing the best musicians work with other geniuses is a wonderful thing to witness. Here are 10 of the best jazz CDs of the year.

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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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NPR Music ended 2008 the way the previous 29 have for NPR and its jazz partner WBGO: with live jazz, all night long. Toast of the Nation features jazz groups welcoming the new year across the country, from New York to Los Angeles, Boston to New Orleans. Here's a preview of the night's artists.

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Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, son of Indian immigrants, says he didn't think about his ethnic identity growing up. But on his new album Kinsmen, he and other like-minded South Asian American jazz musicians, fuse American jazz with a global sound that embraces the music of India.

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Grammy Award-winning jazz musician Freddie Hubbard has died at the age of 70. He collaborated with such greats as John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Hubbard had been hospitalized since a heart attack last month.

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For the past month, NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich laid out multiple strips of paper on his desk, with names like Uncle Owen Aunt Beru, Extra Life and Erykah Badu printed on them. It turns out he was working on his list of the year's top CDs, analog-style. He shares his unique sense of music in this episode of All Songs Considered.

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Herbie Hancock's album is now considered one of the defining moments in jazz fusion. The Library of Congress is preserving the album in its musical collection as one of the country's most culturally significant audio recordings. Hancock and producer David Rubinson reflect on the album's creation and long-lasting impact.

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Harmon is an enthralling jazz pianist, a tireless educator and a widely commissioned composer. In both his playing and his compositions, he draws on his love of the outdoors and Native American traditions, which is plainly evident when he performs his own composition, "Taos Pueblo."

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