New York may be the major incubator for all that's best in American jazz but there are healthy signs that vibrant scenes are emerging in other cities. In Seattle, there's something going on; an exciting scene is developing around a core of young musicians who see the jazz tradition not as one of emulation, but as essentially one of innovation and progress. The emergence of so many like-minded, forward-thinking jazz musicians in Seattle has much to do with the influence and guiding hand of trumpeter Cuong Vu. At the end of 2006, after a dozen years in New York establishing his reputation as an innovative, uncompromising modernist—a wholly original voice—Vu opted to return to his native Seattle in pursuit of a better quality of life, and inevitably, new challenges followed.

The past year has seen a particular flurry of activity, with Vu involved in a number of key new projects, including Leaps of Faith (Origin, 2011), with his own Vu-Tet; the debut of a collaborative project with saxophonist