An impromptu bongo beat became a full-on tribute to James Brown, and suddenly a band had an all-new repertoire. A powerful and versatile vocalist, Alexander and her Evolution Arkestra address the legacies of Jimi Hendrix and the Godfather of Soul from the South Side of the city.

The large jazz orchestra, brassy and slick, powers through Goodwin’s charts from the main stage of the historic jazz festival, celebrating its 55th year. Included is a performance of the Grammy-winning arrangement for George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

On New Year’s Eve, NPR Music and WBGO present a live jazz broadcast from venues coast to coast. Wynton Marsalis, Dee Alexander and John Scofield are scheduled to perform; plus, hear concerts from Chicago, New York and the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Glasper’s group makes a unique mix of jazz, soul and R&B. It’s impossible to classify as one particular genre, but as a sound, it’s as eclectic and different as it is cohesive and round. Watch the group perform “Lift Off” from Black Radio, released earlier this year.

The big band plays “Jingle Bells” and more last New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.

This Twin Cities trio, led by Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic bassist John Munson, stages an annual holiday show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul; it’s always the hottest ticket in town. Watch The New Standards perform the centerpiece of the show, “Snow Days,” for The Current.

Marian McPartland and her guests from seasons past, present and future share favorite memories and unique musical performances of Christmas classics and original holiday tunes.

This year, the most popular records made by young jazz musicians reflected hip-hop, R&B and the black community where they came from. When they broke through, they made an ongoing conversation about jazz’s place in popular music more visible.

Brubeck swung the door open to a new world of free-flowing, where-is-this-going music. Countless people everywhere followed a first Dave Brubeck concert or recording with a lifelong interest in jazz. JazzSet remembers him with a set from the 2009 Newport Jazz Festival.

The newest album by the trumpeter and composer features his arrangements of hymns that his mother, who recently died of ovarian cancer, asked him to perform at her funeral service.

NPR Music has an annual tradition in December: Invite some of the world’s best jazz keyboard players to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, then set them loose on their favorite holiday tunes. Jason Moran, Taylor Eigsti, Geri Allen and Ellis Marsalis perform live.

There’s a certain intensity of spirit in jazz and improvised music, to the point where it occasionally aligns with religious worship. Of course, sometimes jazz musicians just like playing familiar songs. Here are five records, all from 2012, which run the gamut of Christmas jazz.

Kuhn is a highly accomplished pianist, a creative composer and a longtime friend of host Marian McPartland. In his youth, Kuhn played with Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and John Coltrane. Over the years, he’s honed a unique style built on melodic variation and his ceaseless imagination.

Marsalis rings in New Year’s 2012 New Orleans’ style with the music of King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. The trumpeter, who hails from the Crescent City, leads the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra through a rousing set before a boisterous, sold-out house at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York.

In his new book, the guitarist, singer and songwriter shares stories from life growing up in a musical household and talks about collaborating and sharing the stage with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney.

For the better part of three decades, the pianist has been widely recognized as one of the fiercest and most inventive pianists in improvised music. Here, she rides the rhythmic boost of a particularly kinetic quartet, featuring tap dancer Maurice Chestnut.

Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a new, seven-disc Charles Mingus box set chronicling the jazz legend’s mid-’60s live performances. The records, Whitehead says, “can be a little raw, as if the explosive music caught the engineers by surprise.”