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Celebrated Canadian jazz vocalist Eleanor Collins lived life on her own terms, making major contributions to her country and community. She died at 104.

Growing up in Denver, Rudy and Shamie Royston dreamed about moving to a jazz hub like New York. After a few welcome delays to teach and raise a family, they're beginning to pursue careers as performing musicians.

For Women's History Month, World Cafe is exploring 100 years of music history with a timeline of 100 moments.

Some people are said to "follow a path" in their creative life, but a path is not enough for bassist Charlie Haden. For more than 50 years, he's been building his own musical freeway. To follow him down that freeway is one of the richest experiences in American music. It's Haden's birthday this week, so here's a chance to celebrate with five of his best songs.

Despite facing discrimination in the jazz world for being a woman and Japanese, Toshiko Akiyoshi pressed on — becoming a composer-arranger for big bands, working with Charles Mingus and receiving critical acclaim.

Jimmy Greene's new album is dedicated to his daughter, one of the 20 children killed in the elementary school shooting. "She showed love," he says, "to everybody she came in contact with."

Jazz is strange enough for some listeners. Dig a little deeper and it gets ever so bizarre. Some musicians take instruments from other traditions and make it their own. Some go for the big and bold. Others just invent. Hear the strange worlds of Cloud Chamber Bowls, the daxophone, mollusks and more.

The young Icelandic-Chinese singer, now a Grammy nominee, has been pegged by some as her generation's jazz savior — a burdensome role that arguably misreads her talents.

Sonic Youth's co-founder took her cues from a '60s girl-group but forges a new lane. NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich functions as your antidote to the algorithm in eight tracks to know this week.

The New York music marathon turns 10 this year and expands far beyond its modest origins, but it remains a place to discover new views of improvisation. Hear tunes from groups like the Jeff Ballard Trio, Tillery and Aruán Ortiz's Orbiting Quartet.