Jazz

An improviser well-versed in modern jazz, Houle often works with international collaborators in all sorts of settings. His latest album features music from a half-Canadian, half-American quartet.

Rollins recorded his first sessions in 1949, and played his last live shows in 2012. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, then we listen back to a 1994 interview with the tenor saxophonist.

More blues singer than Broadway, the Bird helped introduce bebop to jazz — and along the way redefined jazz velocity with his scrappy sound and pithy melodic figures.

Fresh Air listens back to archival interviews with Max Roach and trumpeter Red Rodney, two musicians who played with Parker; and alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, who considered Parker a mentor.