He found his footing in jazz through its hard-swinging main stem. But after he'd proved his hard-bop mettle, he took a fork in the road toward electric experimentalism. Now, trumpeter Nicholas Payton seems comfortable pursuing a middle ground. Listen live Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET.

The tenor sax is a powerful instrument. This is especially apparent in music created by mighty jazz masters whose skills shaped sounds still reflected in present-day compositions. Hear five great pairings, battles and studio jam sessions.

Most people who pass through the jazz community only travel down certain main thoroughfares. But in order for there to be a vibrant community, you need all those side streets, some of which are trafficked heavily by people in the know, others which remain mostly quiet.

News and notes from around the Jazz Internet, including Randy Weston's 1961 masterpiece, the story of Guiseppi Logan, Nublu in Istanbul, the evergreen improvisation vs. composition debate and so forth.

It's been nearly 50 years since a DownBeat writer called a Village Vanguard performance by the John Coltrane quartet (featuring Eric Dolphy) "anti-jazz." But what offended that writer so badly became so widely influential that today, its techniques have been widely co-opted.