Kevin Whitehead

Born Sept. 27, 1924, Powell helped set the style for jazz piano after WWII. While earlier pianists played busy bass patterns, he helped establish a more fragmented, punctuating role for the left hand.

Washington, who died in 1963, was born in Alabama and got her start singing in church. Throughout her relatively short, two-decade career, she boasted — and proved — that she could sing anything.

In 1959, Rollins was a few years into one of the great hot streaks in jazz history when he took a three-week trip to Europe. Three hours from that tour are heard on a new Rollins-approved reissue.