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“I want this to be a clearinghouse for young creative minds—jazz, hip-hop or otherwise,” Mos Def said of his big band. That was last February, the night before the group’s performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Several weeks earlier, the band played at Jazz at Lincoln’s Center’s Allen Room. Our interview happened right after he and pianist Robert Glasper, the big band’s musical director, rehearsed the ensemble as it navigated through an expansive repertoire that included hip-hop, ’90s new jack swing, and selected music from Neil Young, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and James Brown, among…

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Jazz has an unfortunate habit of designating promising young players the Next Big Thing. More than a half-dozen alto saxophonists were tagged Little Bird as they arrived on the scene in the late 1940s and early ’50s, as if Charlie Parker’s long shadow wasn’t imposing enough. Decades later, a new generation was thrust into the foreground as Young Lions at a time when many would have benefited from several more years of apprenticeship with veteran masters. It’s not that the cub musicians were undeserving, just in need of a little seasoning.

But there’s no need to add a grain of salt when considering…

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Through his varied musical byways, iconoclastic guitarist Bill Frisell has established a kind of home base in the guitar-bass-drums trio format. Most recently, Frisell drew kudos for a recording and gigging band with veteran greats Ron Carter and Paul Motian, on bass and drums, respectively. As part of the JVC Festival, Frisell appears in yet another trio that makes its New York debut at the (le) poisson rouge. Here, Frisell will team up with an ally going back about a decade, bassist Tony Scherr, but—most important for this occasion—makes his first NYC trio showing with an “artist deserving and…

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