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For more than half a century, jazz musicians have collaborated with Indian classical musicians with frequently remarkable results. From Ravi Shankar and Bud Shank to Don Cherry's Codona, here are five works that engage jazz improvisation and Indian ragas.

Some of jazz's all-time greats will play a legendary festival in the seaside Rhode Island town next weekend. Not all the acts are quite so well-known -- but many of them deserve to be. Hear music from Fly, Gretchen Parlato, Arturo O'Farrill and the Matt Wilson Quartet.

Aside from being America's current "Most Livable City," Pittsburgh is known as a home of great pro sports teams and many legends of jazz, including Art Blakey. But WDUQ shines a light on the Pittsburgh jazz musicians working around town these days.

When pianist Vijay Iyer first put on a Smith record, he heard "great silences, toneless columns of air, long tones that cut diagonally across the hubbub of the ensemble."

Millions of listeners know James Moody, even if they don't know him by name. He composed "Moody's Mood for Love," one of the most enduring songs in American music, and he did it with on-the-spot improvisation. Even Aretha Franklin sang it.

Dizzy Gillespie wasn't content to stick with music people could dance to. The jazz trumpeter had more complex melodies, harmonies and rhythms in mind.

This week's Take Five skips from the provinces of Quebec and Ottawa over to British Columbia, featuring a jazz legend, a world-famous vocalist/pianist and a few Canadian musicians who are gaining wider recognition outside their home country. Listen to five songs below.

It's no secret that Cajun and zydeco music is all about sweat. So you can go to Louisiana for a summertime steambath, or you can bring a bit of the heat to you. Here are five songs guaranteed to get your feet moving, at which point the sweating part will take care of itself.

Jazz icon Louis Armstrong didn't just leave behind a treasure trove of musical recordings; he also documented hundreds of his private conversations on tape. Those recordings served as the basis for Terry Teachout's new biography of the legendary musician, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong.

No, no — the headline's not referring to you. Heaven forbid. But people like you listen to a lot of cool and/or unusual music, and refuse to sample the good stuff right under their noses because it's "mainstream." It's best not to think these hipsters omniscient — after all, there's lots of great music they're too cool to notice. Here are 10 examples from 2009.