Kevin Whitehead

Owing to his superb taste and refined touch, Roy Haynes has spent six decades as a drummer of choice for jazz stars like Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Pat Metheny. All of them appear on A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story, a new anthology spread over three CDs and a DVD. It's less a showcase for aggressive drumming than a reminder of how much good and great music Haynes has contributed to as a team player between 1949 and 2006.

Tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman, who died last year, recorded as a sideman with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra.

He also led and recorded with his own groups — and was the father of another tenor saxophonist, Joshua Redman. Fresh Air's jazz critic says Dewey Redman never quite got the acclaim he deserved — and that a just-reissued album from 1982 shows how good he really was.

Several of Nat King Cole's recordings have been re-issued recently. Kevin Whitehead has a review of a re-issued 1958 recording.