“Jeff knows just what to play, how to construct drum fills around the arrangement,” Willie Jones III says of Jeff Hamilton. “Very musical.”

Joe Lovano’s Paramount Quartet will record live at New York’s Village Vanguard for ECM records on Aug. 26–27.

“I think it’s rare to find an improviser that all goes and nothing has to go at all,” says Ambrose Akinmusire of Mary Halvorson.

“We have figured out our show, and people seem to be really connecting with it,” Emmet Cohen says of his band’s current tour, a tribute to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. “The audiences are large and exuberant. It feels like we’re doing what we’re meant to be doing.”

“I feel a little lost in our pop music world today where the art of melody has been lost,” says Steve Wilson. “Hopefully we can get that back.”

“There was something about her tone and sound and phrasing — an intimacy, a vulnerability, an honesty,” says Joshua Redman, who produced Cavassa’s record after she toured with his band.

Blank For.ms, Marcus Gilmore and Jason Moran discuss their new release, Shards.

“This is what I want to hear in guitar playing,” Anthony Wilson said of Ben Monder. “This is why we’re out here. It’s the reason of doing the whole thing. I bow down.”

How best to mark Miles Davis’ centennial? By allowing the stories to flow, and cross-discussions to happen.

“I wanted to get into the real feeling,” Melissa Aldana says of studying the work of singers from Cuba’s filin tradition in preparation for her collaboration with pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba.