Kazuki Takami is A&R and Label Manager at one of Japan’s best record labels East Works Entertainment. EWE has recorded and promoted some of the very best of Japanese jazz since its inception in 1995. They have developed five distinct labels in that time, spreading out into Latin music, electronic jazz and other inspired music

Huddled over a back table at the Roppongi jazz club Alfie, out of earshot of her manager and new record company reps, Akiko confessed. "Actually, I love punk music," she confided in hushed tones, then added with a half-embarrassed laugh, "and Hawaiian guitar, Louis Jordan and the Jackson Five."

Toshiko Akiyoshi's big band has long been recognized as one of the most innovative in the entire world of jazz. Over the course of fifty years of live performances and forty-some recordings, her work has received both critical praise and consistent popularity.

Japanese culture is famed for importing artistic forms and converting them to new patterns, but one local group of foreign musicians is reversing that trend. Candela, a group of four American musicians with diverse musical backgrounds, creates jazz-based music with Japanese melodies, folk tunes and that quintessentially Japanese instrument, the shakuhachi.

Charlie Watts' drumming was one of the primal forces behind the Rolling Stones forging the entire genre of hard rock out of R&B, 50s rock and roll and Chicago blues in the 1960s. His tight, anchoring beat in one of the most famous rock groups ever helped set a new standard of rhythmic structure for rock that was widely imitated.

Diana Krall swept from small jazz lounges to international concert halls in a remarkably short time. Following her first CD in 1993, "Steppin' Out," she continued to release recordings that captured the interest of jazz fans, critics and the general public.

One of the enduring images of New Orleans is the jazz funeral, a long procession of mourners walking toward the cemetery with a full-piece brass band playing along behind. On their most recent release, "Funeral for a Friend," the Dirty Dozen Brass Band re-creates this jazz funeral with gusto.

Don Sickler's work with such names as Joe Henderson, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and his mentor Philly Joe Jones, has established him as an important figure in the world of jazz. He also has led his own quintet, not only writing and arranging for many important jazz recordings, but also playing excellent trumpet.

For fifty years, Dr. John has been a leading light of New Orleans music. Starting out on guitar as a studio musician, he later switched to keyboards while cooking up his special gumbo mix of New Orleans R&B, jazz, funk and blues. His recordings have always mixed the deeply traditional with the most recent rhythmic innovations