Wadada Leo Smith's "Ten Freedom Summers, " which paired the trumpeter's jazz quartet with a chamber orchestra, was a 2013 Pulitzer Prize finalist for music.

WSJ: Where Classical Music and Jazz Collaborate | By Larry Blumenfeld

Lewis, who went on to mastermind the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet for much of the next forty years or so, was only just starting his experiments with baroque and other classical forms, and this piece is probably well enough titled.

NPR: 'Blue Note Records, The Biography'

Between the Puzzles Quartet and the Brooklyn Jazz Underground, he's found a way to make all the pieces fit.

NPR: Alexis Cuadrado: Jazz from the Underground

Balakrishnan would grow up to form a jazz-classical fusion outfit called the Turtle Island Quartet.

NPR: Hear the Music

Here it's augmented by a string quartet, a horn section featuring free-jazz players, and a choir.

WSJ: Spiritualized Revival | By Jim Fusilli

The free-wheeling Mostly Other People Do the Killing, a quartet that jumps from postbop to funk to free jazz often within the span of a few bars worked the same stage as Rudresh Mahanthappa, whose album "Samdhi" (ACT) incorporates straight-ahead jazz, electronica and Indian percussion and modes.

WSJ: Winter Jazzfest | The Broad Tent of Jazzfest | By Jim Fusilli

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, "A Jazz New Year's Eve" features the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band with the singing quartet New York Voices.

NPR: Toast Of The Nation Swings Into 2009

The Turtle Island Quartet has earned rave reviews for their jazzy take on traditional chamber music and their classical take on traditional jazz.

NPR: Hear the Music