In a time of need, shows of compassion

The biggest jazz story was the disaster that befell the music's birthplace in August -- and the numerous benefit concerts that sprang up around the country soon after to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Locally, hardly a week went by after the hurricane in which there was not some sort of fund-raising concert for New Orleans. Trumpeter Terence Blanchard showed up for a two-night run at Scullers shortly after his New Orleans home was flooded and announced that he'd be donating the profits from the first night to the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief Fund.

Smaller venues got into the act, too, with Zeitgeist Gallery hosting a benefit for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which lost its national headquarters in the flooding. The Cambridge Center for Adult Education donated space for ''Here's to Life," a cabaret concert for Katrina survivors.

The Berklee College of Music set up a New Orleans Visiting Artist program to bring displaced musicians to campus for short teaching residencies, including standout saxophonist and Berklee alumnus Donald Harrison, jazz/blues/R&B pianist Henry Butler, and bassist George Porter Jr. of the Meters. Harrison also marched in Boston's 375th anniversary Grand Parade in September, leading the 14-piece New Orleans Resurrection Brass Band, a group of Berklee faculty, grads, and students.

This year also saw the release of the first complete, unexpurgated, and digitally enhanced version of Jelly Roll Morton's famous oral history sessions with folklorist Alan Lomax, via an eight-CD box set from Cambridge-based Rounder Records. Morton was jazz's first great composer, a gifted pianist, and a mesmerizing raconteur. His tales from his early days as a musician provide proof of how deep the roots of jazz run in New Orleans -- all the more reason to mourn the devastation there.

An earlier disaster led, indirectly, to another of the more intriguing jazz stories. Sonny Rollins was in his apartment several blocks from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and was among those evacuated after the attacks there. Four days later, he played an emotionally charged concert at Boston's Berklee Performance Center that was taped both by Rollins and, surreptitiously, by a self-appointed Rollins archivist named Carl Smith. The two later put their tapes together to create one of this year's most memorable CD releases, ''Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert."

The late John Coltrane also made news with recordings released this year. The first was a November 1957 concert at Carnegie Hall, toward the end of Coltrane's brief tenure with Thelonious Monk. The concert was recorded but subsequently lost until a Library of Congress archivist stumbled on it in February. Blue Note Records released the CD version of the concert in September, titled ''At Carnegie Hall." In October, Impulse Records brought out yet another Coltrane live set, ''One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note." This one featured Coltrane's renowned quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones and was made from master tapes recorded during a pair of 1965 radio broadcasts.

Most live CDs come out a lot more quickly, of course, and this year was remarkably fertile. Among those releasing strong live sets this year: Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Jim Hall, Bill Frisell, the SFJazz Collective, Harrison, Marian McPartland, Arturo Sandoval, Geoffrey Keezer, Danilo Perez, the Either/Orchestra, and George Russell. The latter three are Boston-based but did their recordings elsewhere: Perez and his trio at Chicago's Jazz Showcase; the Either/Orchestra in Ethiopia with Mulatu Astatke and other guests; and Russell during a 2003 tour of Europe with the Living Time Orchestra in celebration of his 80th birthday.

Three of Russell's longtime New England Conservatory colleagues also had noteworthy years. Gunther Schuller celebrated his 80th birthday with a series of concerts in November, including two nights at Symphony Hall with James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bob Brookmeyer received a Grammy nomination for his big-band disc ''Get Well Soon," had a three-CD set of his 1950s small group work issued by Mosaic Select, and was tapped to join the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters in 2006, along with Chelsea native Chick Corea, Tony Bennett, Freddie Hubbard, Ray Barretto, Buddy DeFranco, and John Levy. And Ran Blake had a 70th birthday bash thrown for him in April at Jordan Hall, released a duo disc with guitarist David ''Knife" Fabris, and has a solo piano CD due in March.

Harvard brought in Hank Jones, who turned 87 this year, for a four-day residency in April, and he appeared on at least four new CDs worthy of top 10 consideration this year.

But don't get the idea that jazz is only an old man's game. Here in Boston, we saw Taylor Eigsti and Julian Lage show up their elders when they opened for Trio! (Stanley Clarke, Bela Fleck, and Jean-Luc Ponti) at Symphony Hall. We also witnessed dazzling teen piano phenomenon Eldar at Scullers and caught bassist-vocalist Esperanza Spalding sitting in with Ellis Marsalis at the same place, then fronting her own band there a few weeks later. Spalding's sometime bandmate and fellow Berklee alum Christian Scott helped Harrison, his uncle, blow in last New Year as part of NPR's ''Toast of the Nation," and his own debut disc on Concord Records is due out soon. And Dan Tepfer, Daniel Blake, Richie Barshay, and Color and Talea were just some of the young local talents self-producing strong CDs.