In 1997, a Japanese promoter asked Vincent Herring (right) to bring “a young guy who nobody knows” on a tour with a four-saxophone band that also included Bob Berg and Donald Harrison. Herring invited Eric Alexander (left).

Drummond was cherished by generations of mainstream jazz listeners and bandleaders for his authoritative tonal presence, a defining quality of his style most apparent when he played his instrument unamplified.

“Anthony Jackson was one of the most important people to ever pick up and play a bass guitar (correction: as he always said, ‘It’s a six-string contrabass guitar’),” wrote drummer Dave Weckl on Facebook.

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier, trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr., pianist Craig Taiborn, guitarist Marc Ducrete and bassist Brad Jones joined conductor Ernst Theis and the 46-piece Ostinato Orchestra in a Denardo Coleman-produced re-envisioning of Ornette Coleman’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come at the Jazz a la Villette Festival.

​Jack DeJohnette boasted a musical resume that was as long as it was fearsome.

Dino Saluzzi, center, flanked by José Maria Saluzzi, left, and Jacob Young.

Allan Harris, seated, with his band at the Blue Llama in Ann Arbor, Michigan: from left, Jay White, Sylvia Cuenca, Alan Grubner and John Di Martino.

​Blake betrayed little emotion even as his hands were a blur of paradiddles, cross-sticking and double-stroke rolls. But beneath the surface, emotion was lurking.

Sullivan Fortner (left), Tyler Bullock and Esteban Castro, honorees of the inaugural Gilmore Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Awards.

​“That is Heaven right here on Earth,” said vocalist Faye Carol of Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington.