She is still a jazz composer, by self-identification, working with jazz improvisers.

All jazz improvisers think about the arc of a solo, where it comes from and where it goes.

Many of the better young jazz improvisers in New York gravitated toward him, but then he was gone.

At his best, he's a consummate jazz improviser, and for musicians, he's at the top of the class.

But he is also a jazz improviser, the sort attracted to soloists with the highest degree of fluency.

Certainly many good jazz improvisers have a personal vocabulary of musical 'gestures' which they use every day.

Generous and perennially curious about the new jazz improvisers, he has kept at it; unbelievably, he turns 80 this fall.

Motian added "beautiful" to the adjectives associated with the drummer's art, and was much in demand by the most adventurous jazz improvisers.

On paper the combination makes sense, pairing the great salsa orchestras with a great jazz improviser.

Though the idea of the show was sound - to bring together jazz improvisers and blues stars - the execution was mostly miserable.