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George Tillman Jr.'s sketch of the life and death of the Notorious B.I.G. looks at how the Brooklyn rapper changed hip-hop. Corey Takahashi takes a look back at the man who would become Biggie Smalls.

This year's oldest Grammy nominee is Delta blues pianist Pinetop Perkins. He's played with the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters. He says he even performed for a U.S. president at the White House — though at 95, he can't remember which one.

With her wispy, delicate voice, Dearie was a darling of the jazz world for decades. Her biggest hit was "I'm Hip," and she even recorded with Schoolhouse Rock. The cabaret singer and pianist died Saturday of natural causes in her New York City home. She was 82.

Host Marian McPartland calls Dearie an "incandescent singer and pianist" whose "delicate, swinging style makes every song a musical gem." The vocalist and pianist died this past year of natural causes. Piano Jazz remembers her life and music in an archival interview and performance.

Originally released in 1961, electric guitarist Grant Green's first album with Blue Note Records, Grant's First Stand, has been reissued. Green has a solid swinger's knack for skippy, airborne jazz rhythms, but some of his lines wouldn't sound out of place in a Chicago blues bar.

Over the course of 70 years, more than 60 albums and four Grammys, The Blind Boys of Alabama's members become synonymous with gospel soul. The innovation never ends, however, as they infuse their new album, Down in New Orleans, with Dixieland jazz, funk and R&B.

Jeff "Tain" Watts, an original member of the Wynton Marsalis quintet, has released an album titled Watts. But it's no ego trip; the disc is inspired, at least in part, by L.A.'s Watts neighborhood.

Wilson's Loverly won the 2009 Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album. With a wide variety of standards — from "St. James Infirmary" to "Til There Was You" — she stretches out on Loverly at the Chicago Symphony Center.

Foster starts out her KUT session by reaching back to her roots with a Sister Rosetta Tharpe song. It sets the mood for a soulful performance and conversation with the modern blues singer and guitarist, who looks beyond the folk tradition for which she's become known.

Anne Brown, who would have been 110 years old this month, was the first Black vocalist ever accepted at Juilliard.