JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater

As a child in Azerbaijan, Amina Figarova loved the piano at first sight. She would arrange all her dolls around her and play for them. "Nobody could stop me," she told an interviewer at All About Jazz. "I would sit and play and play." Figarova studied classical music and heard jazz at home, especially Herbie Hancock.

We're in a guitar world, from Pakistan to Brazil and from steel strings to nylon, as the Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet and Trio da Paz play in turn at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Allison Miller has a jazz portfolio with Dr. Lonnie Smith, Steven Bernstein and a host of others, as well as a pop career with Brandi Carlile, Ani DiFranco and Natalie Merchant. She's a U.S.

It started in 1966 as a three-week agreement among composer and conductor Thad Jones, drummer Mel Lewis and Max Gordon, the proprietor of The Village Vanguard in New York. And it continues, gloriously.

Drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts comes from Pittsburgh, and trumpeter Sean Jones lives there now. On this episode of JazzSet, each brings a high-energy band to the Detroit Jazz Festival, held every Labor Day Weekend. We'll get back to Pittsburgh in a minute.