Arts and Entertainment

Norah Jones returns to the piano for many of the songs on her new album, Day Breaks, which hearkens back to her blockbuster debut, Come Away With Me. She recruited an assortment of Blue Note jazz greats for the album, on which she delves into some of the issues of the day — particularly in "Flipside."

SET LIST

• "Flipside"

Many jazz pianists play tunes from the Great American Songbook, that beloved canon of standards from the early 20th century. But pianist Edward Simon has chosen to focus on another great collection of American standards for his newest album, Latin American Songbook.

Growing up in Venezuela, near the northern edge of South America, was an advantage for Simon. His early listening encompassed music from the north — Cuba and Puerto Rico — and also extended southward to the music of Chile, Brazil and Argentina.

Edward Albee, the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? among many others, died Friday at the age of 88 following a short illness, according to his longtime personal assistant.

Leonard Feather (1914–1994) was hailed as the "Dean of Jazz Journalists." He critiqued artists for Downbeat, Melody Maker, Wire and his own weekly syndicated column in the Los Angeles Times. He authored works including The Jazz Years: Earwitness To An Era and The Encyclopedia Of Jazz.

Kristin Chenoweth has starred on Broadway in Wicked and on television in Pushing Daisies and The West Wing. We've invited Chenoweth, who is 4 feet 11 inches, to answer three questions about 6-foot-1 model and actress Brigitte Nielsen, who is perhaps most famous for her brief marriage to Sylvester Stallone. Click the audio link above to find out how she does.

Robert Glasper is always making music. Solo or with his quartet, the Robert Glasper Experiment, he's released 9 albums and collaborated with everyone from Herbie Hancock to Kendrick Lamar, investigating the sounds and rhythms of jazz and hip-hop in equal measure,

Oliver Jones is one of Canada's premier pianists and a winner of the prestigious Oscar Peterson Award. As a child, he took lessons with Daisy Peterson Sweeney, Oscar Peterson's sister. With a long career as a performer, composer and educator, Jones is an important player in the international jazz piano scene.