Latest Jazz from NPR Music

Keyboardist, composer, arranger and bandleader Clare Fischer was known for his versatile and deft touch with everything from classical to jazz to Latin and Brazilian music. He began his career after earning his Master's degree in composition from Michigan State University, where he worked as a pianist and conductor for the vocal group The Hi-Lo's. After working with The Hi-Lo's for five years, he went on to work with Dizzy Gillespie and Donald Byrd.

The U.S. considers jazz a national treasure. But its core audience has been gradually shrinking — and aging.

Grammy-winning bassist Christian McBride has been trying to stem that tide by looking at the form in a different way. He tells Tell Me More guest host Celeste Headlee where he thinks jazz should go to reach its audience, and offers his personal insight with regard to how artists should take it from here.

The pianist Mulgrew Miller died on May 29, 2013, following a cerebral hemorrhage. The jazz world is grieving the loss of this "wonderful musician and great spirit," in the words of fellow pianist Kenny Barron. As saxophonist Loren Schoenberg so aptly says, "Mulgrew could levitate a bandstand."

Among the vestment racks, satchel purveyors and art galleries of New York's SoHo neighborhood lies a small merchant unlike its neighbors. It's called The Evolution Store, and it peddles, um, natural-history collectibles. You know, preserved insects, taxidermy, skulls and bones, remnants of marine creatures. It's as if a museum ran out of space and started putting its sloths and tarantulas in the gift shop.

Naturally, our video producers saw it and thought: Obviously, we need to record there.

Madeleine Peyroux started singing blues and jazz on the streets of Paris. Over the course of her career, Peyroux has released six albums, sold more than a million copies of her second record (Careless Love) and developed a following for her easygoing, Billie Holiday-tinged sound.

With the bass, "you have a lot more power than you may think," Linda Oh says. Born in Malaysia to Chinese parents, her family moved to Western Australia, where she started out playing bass in rock bands. Since discovering the double bass, Oh become a steady presence on the scene, whether playing with a string quartet, composing for film or covering the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which she does here with "Soul to Squeeze" in a set with host Jon Weber.

Pianist Thomas Lauderdale is the co-founder of the celebrated orchestral ensemble Pink Martini, which bridges classical, jazz, world music and old-fashioned pop.

"I'm inching my way towards Liberace land every day," Lauderdale says, laughing after opening with a rollicking take on "Malaguena," composed by Cuba's equivalent of George Gershwin, Ernesto Lecuona.

On this installment of Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland and bassist Gary Mazzaroppi, Béla Fleck brings his jazz sensibilities to a set of originals and standards, opening with a refreshing take on Thelonious Monk's "In Walked Bud."