This is my final installment of Black History Month celebrations and selections on Visions. I couldn’t possibly cover the pantheon of the greatest Black jazz musicians in a month, the shortest month of the year no less, but I hope you’ve enjoyed listening as much as I’ve enjoyed putting these episodes together.

Visions typically covers the period of jazz from the late 1960s to the present, but I couldn’t celebrate Black History Month through jazz, aka black music, without taking it back a little further to the 1950s and even 1940s. And I still haven’t even covered the half of it! But I’ll keep celebrating black music each week, each month, each year of Visions.

During this episode, I feature music from 1956 to 2026. You hear Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Lee Morgan, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Mulgrew Miller, Immanuel Wilkins, Tomeka Reid, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Belgrave, Duke Ellington, and many more.

Check out the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

Visions Playlist for Feb. 23, 2026

• “Punjab” – Joe Henderson*
• “Angela” – Lee Morgan
• “New Breed” – Billy Harper
• “Waltz for Monk [Live]” – The Mulgrew Miller Trio
• “A Night In Tunisia” – Dizzy Gillespie Big Band
• “Len Sirrah” – Elvin Jones*
• “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues” – Cécile McLorin Salvant
• “BLUES BLOOD” – Immanuel Wilkins
• “Thème de Yoyo” – The Art Ensemble of Chicago
• “a(ways) For CC and CeCe [feat. Jason Roebke, Mary Halvorson & Tomas Fujiwara]” – Tomeka Reid
• “Firewater” – Herbie Hancock
• “Odoms Cave” – Marcus Belgrave*
• “Fleurette Africaine” – Duke Ellington
• “Darn That Dream” – Dexter Gordon
• “Kahlil the Prophet” – Jackie McLean

* indicates Detroit artists

Artist Andre Barker is a Detroit born and bred painter. Since graduating from Wayne State University and Columbia College Chicago, he spends his time schooling the next generation of artists as a professor.

In Barker’s latest exhibition, he responds to the social and political pressures that make daily life difficult for Black Americans. He illustrates simple acts like existing and rest as mechanisms to find peace and power amid those struggles through his portraits of Black life in Detroit.

Barker’s exhibition entitled “Rest Is” is currently on display at M Contemporary Art gallery in Ferndale through Feb. 14.

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