A new four-CD set highlighting the music of the jazz keyboardist and drummer contains two discs that are gems and another two that have their moments.

The alto saxophonist keeps good company: He’s a member of legendary drummer Roy Haynes’ band, for one. That’s one of the reasons he’s become of the most in-demand players in New York. Shaw returns to his alma mater to lead his own band in a live concert webcast.

Columbia Records’ latest release from the jazz maverick’s vault is a three-CD, one-DVD live compilation. The previously unreleased material captures a little-known burst of creativity, recorded between two vastly different periods in Davis’ career.

The jazz musician was beloved by his fellow artists and acclaimed by critics and fans for his ability to spontaneously coerce music from an ensemble. Working with musicians of all stripes, he pioneered a system of real-time arranging he called Conduction. He was 65.

Few pianists have been as influential to modern jazz practice as McCoy Tyner. And at age 74, his driving left hand and dense chords are still in fine form. He performs with two all-star ensembles, including one with long-time collaborator Bobby Hutcherson, at the SFJAZZ Center opening.

Once he had established himself as a world-class saxophonist, Joshua Redman moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he grew up. Soon afterward, he co-founded the SFJAZZ Collective. With his successor in the tenor sax chair, Joe Lovano, the band runs through “Blackwell’s Message,” a jaunty, open swinger to ring in the opening of the new SFJAZZ Center.

Following in a long line of Cuban-born pianists, Virelles has quickly become an elite New York jazz pianist. But his personal vision is full of mystery — a back-to-the-future refraction of Afro-Cuban ritual through multiple generations of musicians, poetry and even abstract painting.

More than 25 years ago, the New-York-based musician pioneered a new vocabulary of ensemble interaction he called conduction. Since then, Morris, also a cornet player, directed more than 5,000 musicians around the world in real-time group improvisations. He was 65.

The saxophonist turns 80 this year, and he’s celebrating with the release of a live album. It features six new tunes from one of jazz’s greatest living composers, as well as a long-running band whose uniquely intense language somehow makes a living legend more legendary.

Pianist Bill Evans was a giant of jazz piano and one of Marian McPartland’s first guests on Piano Jazz in 1979. On this program, the usually quiet and reserved musical genius opens up about his approach and philosophy.

Hear a Surround Sound remix of music from the Grammy-nominated album, in performance at the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival. Gretchen Parlato sings a song that Bill Evans arranged for Astrud Gilberto, while Truesdell chooses three additional pieces that have special meaning at Newport.

Thirty years after presenting its first concerts in San Francisco, the organization SFJAZZ has built a permanent home and performance venue. For its grand opening, masters like McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea rubbed shoulders with modern stars like Esperanza Spalding and the SFJAZZ Collective. WWOZ, WBGO and NPR Music present a live recording of the concert.

Percussionist John Santos and pianist Rebeca Mauleón played the very first SFJAZZ festival in 1983. Today, they’re employed by the organization, which has just built a new $64 million permanent home. On the eve of its grand opening, they reflect on what the new building means to the community.

The singer’s new album isn’t quite a jazz record, but it comes from someone who has obviously studied a lot of jazz, on and off the bandstand. James, a “huge John Coltrane freak,” reflects on the time he got to tour with Coltrane’s pianist.

Integration of Indian music, “three seconds and you know who’s playing” saxophone, double-necked guitar and all that it implies, homegrown approaches to composition: It’s all here. But the alto saxophonist’s new album surfs on this information overload without drowning in it.

Pianist, composer and NEA Jazz Master Chick Corea is one of the most creative and inventive musicians in jazz today. On this episode of Piano Jazz from 2002, he solos in “Monk’s Mood” and joins host Marian McPartland for an evocative version of his legendary tune “Spain.”

Get ready for ecstatic sounds, as the French horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, guitar and harp — along with reeds and brass, hand claps and vocals, bass and drums — dig the deep, dark, blues-drenched, jubilant Mingus groove from St. Bart’s Church in New York City.

It’s a festival with everything between international headliners and relative unknowns, intricately-plotted compositions and completely free improvisation, high-concept one-offs and bands shaped over decades. See photos from the nine-year-old marathon of new bands and repertoires in New York.

Elling’s commanding, richly grained baritone voice is the perfect vehicle for jazz songs, whether reworked classics or original compositions. Fusing jazz and poetry, Elling performs a series of Ornette Coleman poems with freeform accompaniment by host Marian McPartland.