Guardian Music — 21 June 2009: Number 49 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of dance musicLong after the last chord, people were still crowding down the aisles of the Royal Festival Hall in London to get close to jazz's greatest surviving revolutionary... more info

Guardian Music — (Smithsonian Folkways)At around 60 quid, this remarkable anthology of jazz's evolution from 1899 to 2003 isn't exactly a snip – but it does come with over 100 tracks on six discs wrapped in a beautifully illustrated, 200-page hardback book, and the... more info

Guardian Music — Philip Larkin loved trad jazz. John Harris grew up thinking nothing before bebop was worth listening to. So he tried to discover the appeal of Ellington and Basie"I can live a week without poetry," Philip Larkin said in 1965, "but not a day without j... more info

Guardian Music — (Emarcy)Those familiar with American bassist Charlie Haden (who plays the Barbican on 21-22 May) and his landmark recordings with Ornette Coleman in the 1950s or with Keith Jarrett in the 70s might find his now 25-year-old Quartet West overly gracefu... more info

Guardian Music — Jazz violinist whose playing had a powerful lyrical sense and a mischievous streakAs the instrument often taken to represent the soul of western classical music, the violin has seemed untouchable to many jazz artists. However, a few have sidestepped ... more info

Guardian Music — Our music team pick the songs or albums, old or new, they just can't turn offCharlie Haden Quartet West Sophisticated Ladies The great American bassist and bandleader Charlie Haden, a key figure in Ornette Coleman's free-jazz revolution of the 50s an... more info

Guardian Music — (ECM)Long-running lineups are a rarity in jazz, but pianist Marcin Wasilewski's Polish trio have played together since they were students in the early 1990s, and their ability to catch and amplify each other's thoughts reflects this. Like their earli... more info

Guardian Music — Our music team pick the songs or albums, old or new, they just can't turn offMarcin Wasilewski Trio Faithful Originally the backing band of Polish trumpet legend Tomasz Stanko, this trio have become one of the most admired contemporary ensembles in E... more info

Guardian Music — A Coltrane devotee who liked Brubeck's Take Five? Anthony Braxton has always been at odds with orthodox jazz thinkingIn the 1980s, after a period of eclipse by fusion, more traditional approaches to jazz were in resurgence – a subject I'll return t... more info

Guardian Music — More than any other jazz guitarist, Metheny has given the instrument as prominent a place as a trumpet or saxophonePat Metheny, the guitar star from Missouri, is one of the most commercially successful instrumentalists in jazz. But while such an achi... more info