“In terms of what a singer is capable of making you feel, she is as good as it gets,” Cavassa said of Mahalia Jackson during a live Blindfold Test with DB’s Frank Alkyer.

The 47th Kennedy Center Honors featured a stellar group including The Grateful Dead, film director Francis Ford Coppola, Arturo Sandoval, Bonnie Raitt and The Apollo Theater. Will future Honors uphold these standards?

Tommy Castro & The Painkillers

“I love the fact that when some people think about my music they think of it as joyous, but there is darkness inside,” Anat Cohen says. “We are complex humans.”

A recent batch of great jazz from today’s most caliente Latin artists, clockwise from top left: Zaccai Curtis, Salsa de la Bahia, Melfis Santa, Leiba Trio, Duduka Da Fonseca Trio, Hamilton De Holanda & Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Diego Figueiredo and The John Santos Sextet & Friends.

“It sounds together, there’s nothing random, yet hardly anything was said,” saxophonist Ohad Talmor said of Back To The Land.

“Why, being a classically trained musician, do I have to only play the obvious themes?” asks Kristin Lee.

“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.

Charles Lloyd (left) and Julian Lage perform at the Zakir Hussain memorial concert on Feb. 28.

“This music is really about honoring my forebearers and expressing gratitude to my parents and my grandparents,” Kono says about Voyages.