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Fifty-five years ago, a young jazz presenter named George Wein discovered that the people sailing yachts around Narragansett Bay loved jazz. With their support, Wein founded the Newport Jazz Festival, the first of its kind, and it's still going strong. Here's a highlight of this year's festival, from Herbie Hancock and Dave Holland.

On a stage adorned with roses, the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival honors Sheila Jordan for a lifetime of service. The innovative vocalist shares songs and stories from the Kennedy Center, with the young Russian-born singer Sophie Milman showcasing her talents on stage.

At Monterey, Cullum links Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" to Rihanna's "Umbrella," segues from Cole Porter to Jimi Hendrix, delivers a personal manifesto on a Charles Mingus riff, leaps off the piano into the air and never lets his audience down.

Featuring Anat Cohen on clarinet and saxophones, the Anzic Orchestra -- a jazz band with a cello section -- blows away the Kennedy Center crowd at the 2009 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. Competition winner Hailey Niswanger opens.

Some of his best friend musicians call him Tooch. The extraordinary bassist John Patitucci comes to the stage at the KC Jazz Club in Washington, D.C., where an array of basses, guitars and drums await his tuned-in trio with Larry Koonse and Brian Blade. They're playing music from Patitucci's album, Line by Line.

In the late 1990s, JazzSet made two visits to the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival in Gresham, Ore. Music started before noon, and as the sun burned the haze away, the snow-capped peak shimmered on the skyline, helping to inspire memorable performances by the Billy Childs Trio and the John Blake Quintet.

Horace Silver is a piano-playing, pencil-packing papa whose songs showcase a family of jazz characters such as "Sister Sadie" and "Senor Blues." His music filled Dee Dee Bridgewater's album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver. This concert in his honor comes from the Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall series in Los Angeles.

A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane and his powerful quartet, remains a towering and seemingly untouchable jazz classic. But the virtuosic genre-benders in the Turtle Island Quartet have done it justice, re-working the seminal album for strings and winning a Grammy for their trouble. They perform a live version on this week's JazzSet.

Malaysia's foreign minister Mohamad Hasan cited concerns over the lack of inclusive and free participation.

In spite of civil war, Mali has produced extraordinary artists and music. NPR's Linda Wertheimer speaks with one of the country's stars about her new album Né So -- meaning "home."