There are not many artists who reignite their careers in their ninth decade, but the Pittsburgh-born pianist Ahmad Jamal, who comes to London's Barbican on 8 February, is really on a roll, at 82. The knockout title track from his latest album, Blue Moon, has been nominated for a Grammy and his London performance will be a showcase for the disc

Forty years in the making, four CDs and 260 minutes long, Mississippi-born trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's Ten Freedom Summers proved hard to beat for strength and depth.

If Gotan Project had continued to be as innovative as they were when they first came to our attention, then maybe they'd have ended up sounding like this Argentinian band.

This is really something. Veteran trumpeter Smith has been writing music about the civil-rights struggle since a tribute to Medger Evers 35 years ago.

A tantalising portrait of a British society beauty who became the ‘crazy friend’ of Thelonious Monk

Who lives in a house like this? There's dirty laundry all over the floor, piles of records strewn around, life drawings hanging in the bathroom and war medals displayed on the walls. Why, it's Pete Doherty, of course, the free-spirited scamp. In a video recorded for NME's website, the 33-year-old musician gives viewers a tour of his cramped Paris apartment.

Voted the BBC's Sound of 2012, his breakthrough came with supporting Adele on tour. But the release of his first album is the real litmus test

Bass: Adam Clayton

The avant-garde work of the saxophonist Sam Rivers was the most accessible free-form music for the general listener. The more prickly practitioners of the Sixties avant-garde saxophone treated their audiences with aggression, but Sam was almost without ego, a brilliant teacher and among the nicest of men.

Basement Jaxx's creative resource has let them survive the 1990s' dance-pop heyday with hardly a scratch.

Displaying Olympian knowledge of this protean genre, Gioia combines facts and background information in an absorbing narrative that tootles along, from ragtime which peaked in 1909, to the "struts and prances" of vocalist Jamie Cullum (born 1979).

Guitarist Vieux Farka Touré here seeks to extend his Malian musical heritage beyond the country's borders, by collaborating with American musicians on several tracks – though never obscuring the native essence of his style.

Unlikely as it seems, Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years" has now provoked two very successful jazz versions – Jimmy Scott's tearjerker and the excellent opener to this, nu-jazz diva Parlato's latest album.