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Hall is in a league of players who've turned the tables for jazz and their respective instruments. As far as modernizing the sound and vocabulary of jazz guitar to the degree he did, longtime admirer and fellow guitarist Rez Abbasi says Hall is unmatched. Abbasi picks five songs, each of which reveals Hall's idiosyncratic technique.

Many younger artists are making a strong case to be the future of the genre — and the future looks bright. All but three musicians on Shaunna Morrison Machosky's Top 10 list are under the age of 40, and they all brush aside any notion of jazz being in a rut.

While the most curious jazz album of 2010 features robots playing the works of guitar wizard Pat Metheny, we're not ready just yet to cave into our new jazz robot overlords. Outside of the robotic army, we pick the best new jazz albums 2010 has had to offer.

Take Five was founded on the belief that there's as much to be learned from the classics as there is from the here and now. Still, a remarkable wealth of great music is still being churned out by young lions and old giants alike. Here are five of the best new jazz CDs the year has produced so far, with Jeff "Tain" Watts leading the pack.

The Fourth of July is a birthday party and the whole country is invited. And every party needs music. Whether meditating on America's landscape, its freedoms or the things about it that frustrate us, America is ripe for inspiration, as evidenced by the songs here.

Influencing everyone from The Rolling Stones to Cassandra Wilson, the blues recordings that came out of the Mississippi Delta from the late 1920s through the late '30s have had an enormous impact on American music. Hear songs from Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House and more.

No matter how you're going to spend your time by the pool, you're going to need musical accompaniment -- preferably something that steers clear of the typical Jimmy Buffett and Beach Boys mix. How about some jazz? Not the heady stuff, unless you're aiming to clear the decks. Instead, get yourself some deep '70s jazz; the kind that leaves a funk aroma and washes off easily when you take the plunge.

This coming weekend, more than 100 jazz acts will descend upon the Detroit International Jazz Festival. The event will celebrate three brothers from a special Detroit-rooted jazz family: pianist Hank Jones and his two late brothers, drummer Elvin and trumpeter Thad.

Throughout the '80s and early '90s, John Zorn and Bill Laswell were at the epicenter of extreme music. Hear five bands that take the ferocity of '60s free jazz and match it with pummeling death metal.

With many hundreds of new recordings each year, jazz maintains a lot of biodiversity in its tiny ecosystem. Chances are, it's got something for everyone, but finding the right fit is like searching for an ant in the jungle; it's never an easy quest, but when it happens, you'll likely find an entire colony. Here are the 10 finest jazz records of 2009, as chosen by WBGO's Josh Jackson.