Sheila Jordan is proof that practice, dues and sheer will are essential ingredients for the making of a great improviser. At just about every performance she improvises on a blues to tell her life story, tracing her development from her birth to an unmarried 16-year-old girl through hanging with Charlie Parker and marriage to the bebop pianist Duke Jordan. It’s quite a tale, and by the end you realize that she’s willed herself into one of this era’s great jazz vocalists. Without possessing either a large vocal range or a luxuriant sound, she can take a well-known melody and transform it while endowing her improvisations with a straightforward soulfulness that transcends the limitations of her voice.

Chick Corea and Gary Burton continue their long time musical collaboration and conversation with upcoming performances in Los Angeles and Costa Mesa. You can learn about the pianist and vibraphonist in Andrew Gilbert’s article and related blog post, which appeared today in the print and online editions of the Los Angeles Times. Details related to the two performances are listed below.

Talk about getting an early start. At the ripe old age of 39, Hammond B3 master Joey DeFrancesco has already logged more than three fruitful decades on the jazz scene. The son of “Papa” John DeFrancesco, a respected, hard-swinging Philadelphia organist, he started playing piano and organ at four and by six was good enough to sit in at one his father’s gigs. He hadn’t graduated from high school yet when Miles Davis recruited him in 1988 for his band, a gig that took DeFrancesco out on the road with the trumpeter for several months.

When it came to evaluating other musicians, Miles Davis was better known for caustic putdowns than effusive praise. But when a cat had something to say, the legendary trumpeter didn’t hesitate to hand out props. “All these young guys are doing is playing somebody else’s shit, copying all the runs and licks that other guys already laid down,” Davis said in his autobiography. “There are a few young guys out there who are developing their own style. My alto player, Kenny Garrett, is one of them.”