“I had wanted to create a project honoring my relationship with a number of bodies of water that have been very impactful in my life,” says Stephan Crump.

“I figured you’d get this one,” laughed John Clayton, left, after Rufus Reid guessed Billy Childs. “This one’s a little soft pitch.”

“Nicholas Payton is brilliant,” Tim Warfield said during his live Blindfold Test at Temple University. “He’s never ceased to surprise or amaze me. He’s a bad dude.”

​“To me, it’s not a departure,” says Kenny Garret, right, with Svoy at his side. “My teacher was Miles Davis, so I’ve always been open to all genres of music.”

The “Good Trouble” band, from left, Jeff Lederer, Tia Fuller, Matt Wilson, Dawn Clement and Ben Allison.

Maria Schneider said of Decades, her new compilation release: ​“I just wanted to create something, put it in a beautiful box and say, ‘Look at what we did.‘”

“Being president of Blue Note has been one of the coolest things that ever happened to me,” Was said. “It’s a gas to serve as one of the caretakers of that legacy.”

On Shadow, Wright has taken the words of vocalist Nina Simone to heart — that an artist must reflect her times.

“It’s not like Bach, where you had better play the notes correctly,” Fleck says. “In the case of Rhapsody, it had been done so many ways and with the blessing of [Gershwin].”

“Within our uniquely limited instrumentation, we can get people loud and excited,” Kahil El’Zabar says of his 50-year-old Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.