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Renee Montagne talks to Louisiana bluesman Tab Benoit about his new CD, Voice of the Wetlands. Benoit and an all-star group of Louisiana musicians recorded the album in January to call attention to the state's vanishing wetlands.

On Friday morning, New Orleans kicks off its first jazz festival since Hurricane Katrina. This year, the Jazz & Heritage Festival has adopted the motto "Witness the Healing Power of Music." Nowhere will this be more evident than in the festival's Gospel Tent.

In a career that spans seven decades, pianist Hank Jones has worked with everyone who's anyone in jazz, including Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Billie Holiday. One of the last of his era, Jones celebrates the legends of his time, seeming to downplay his own genius.

Authors Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson share the stories behind Hollywood's most beloved songs — from Casablanca's "As Time Goes By" to the melodies from Mary Poppins — in their book The Songs of Hollywood.

Gustave Flaubert was an apostle of le mot juste — using exactly the right word. Lydia Davis elegantly translates his masterpiece, Madame Bovary, in the same spirit. Davis' words lure readers back into Emma Bovary's sexy, scandalous and tragic tale.

The advent of bebop added a fresh sound to American music. It also added new voices to some metropolitan radio stations: the late-night jazz DJs who specialized in presenting this new music to their fellow hipster nightflies. Appreciative musicians often wrote them tributes like these.

The flute is one of the oldest known instruments, but it gets little respect. It's mostly known for schmaltzy concert recordings and one particular comedic movie reference. Luckily, the sheer virtuosic force of many jazz artists has lent a cool factor to the much-maligned instrument. Here are five of jazz's best flutists in action.

In the piano trio, only three instruments are involved, so the thoughts and actions of musicians must be absolutely in sync with one another. Pianists like Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett have led legendary trios, but here are five piano-trio leaders who keep the acoustic jazz tradition alive in fresh ways.

She cried the first time she heard Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight," and proceeded to dedicate her life (and massive inheritance) to jazz. A new biography delves into the life of Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter, aka "The Jazz Baroness."

Though fierce political opponents, John McCain and Barack Obama agree on a literary matter: Each picks Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, featuring the stoic freedom-fighter Robert Jordan, as a favorite.