“With a really great artist, it’s not actually coming from them, it’s coming from their environment,” said Chris Wood, shown at right with his brother Oliver Wood (center) and Jano Rix (left). “They’re just open to reflecting what’s happening around them, and they just have the ability to intuitively recognize what’s good. It’s the beautiful mystery of the creative process, and we’re just constantly trying to surrender to it.”

“I do feel the need to say, ‘I am a jazz musician,’ but I’ve been in these other fields of music, and I do find them all related,” said pianist Paul Cornish.

Always a sharp dresser, Farnsworth wears a pocket square given to him by trumpeter Art Farmer. “You need to look good if you want to hang around me,” Farmer told him.

“Who I am today is because of my experiences with the AACM,” Amina Claudine Myers said of the artist-led Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

Gadabout Season developed over many months of recording sessions in Brandee Younger’s East Harlem living room.

“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.

“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.

“I’m not getting any younger, and in my later years I want to make sure my own visions can be realized,” says pianist George Colligan.

Butcher Brown, clockwise from top left: Marcus Tenney, DJ Harrison, Morgan Burrs, Corey Fonville and Andrew Randazzo. (Keyboardist Harrison couldn’t make the gig, so special guest Jacob Mann sat in with the band at the Reno Jazz Festival.)

​“I love the place that fate or whatever has positioned me in Gil Evans’ life and legacy,” said Ryan Truesdell.