Let’s hope that the first posthumously released Amy Winehouse album is also the last; not because it’s in any way bad – actually it’s a pretty decent collection of songs from throughout her career – but because “pretty decent” is about as good as it gets. After this, if there’s anything left, it will surely only be the sound of a barrel being scraped.

The 10-day London Jazz Festival, now in its 19th year, is a diverse and international festival that embraces the unapologetically commercial Jazz Voice, the outer reaches of (free) free improv and even Abram Wilson’s Jazz for Toddlers. Despite a line-up that’s both starry and distinguished there was no single name that might encapsulate the festival’s rainbow palette. You can get a taste of its breadth from the three giants competing for our attention on the final night: Brazilian pioneer Hermeto Pascoal, guitarist Bill Frisell and free-jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. 

It’s nine days into the 10-day London Jazz Festival, and highlights so far include the double bill of saxophonists Steve Williamson and Steve Coleman, and the UK’s own Empirical supporting veterans Archie Shepp and Joachim Kuhn (the former a mellowed African-American firebrand, the latter a German pianist with all the wild intensity of Klaus Kinski in a Beethoven biopic). Contemporary crooner Gregory Porter, who played the "Jazz on 3" launch at Ronnie Scott’s, didn't do much for me, but it seems already to have been written that he is THE FUTURE OF JAZZ and it might just come to pass.

Born in Los Angeles, raised by his mother in Bakersfield, and now living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, Gregory Porter's resonant baritone is one of music's wonders. Porter's Grammy-nominated debut album, Water, has earned him praise from critics and fellow artists alike. Released in the UK in April this year to coincide with his appearance on Later... With Jools Holland, Water leapt to Number One in both the UK's iTunes and Amazon charts.

There aren't too many pianists who excite jazz aficionados and hip-hop fans in equal measure. But then no other artist has been inspired equally by hip-hop beats on the one hand and Thelonious Monk on the other. And while it appears increasingly that jazz artists are refusing to be straitjacketed by genre convention, US pianist Robert Glasper is perhaps the prime example of this blurring at the edges.

The man who played with everyone, Roy Haynes earned his Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Grammys, in a career even his 86 years hardly make credible. He was 21 when he got the call to drum for Louis Armstrong in 1946. He was at the drum stool as Billie Holiday played her last club gig, crying at the pain of her dying body. Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, Archie Shepp and Pat Metheny are among the names who’ve enjoyed his sympathetic touch.

Funkier than a James Brown bridge, the mighty Soul Rebels Brass Band swung back into town last night and flattened all before them. Possessing that rare combination of serious chops, impeccable stagecraft and down-home soul, they confirmed their position as one of the most explosive live acts on the scene. From the very opening bars of Stevie Wonder's “Living for the City”, taken from their current Rounder album Unlock Your Mind, the Soul Rebels had the entire QEH off their seats.

It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive curtain-raiser to the London Jazz Festival than Jazz Voice, and this year's vintage was the finest yet. One sensed from the very opening bars of Gregory Porter and Ian Shaw's a cappella duet, “Feelin' Good”, that something remarkable was about to unfold, and so it proved.

Fusion is a pretty difficult word to deal with. Miles Davis's Bitches Brew might have inspired a raft of jazzers to embrace rock, but an awful lot of the crossover that followed – like prog rock – became the musical equivalent of the love that dare not speak its name. Shoot!, the debut album from Norway’s Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen, might fit that bill, but it’s not that straightforward.

You may know Harry Shearer better as Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons. His wife, Judith Owen, is as well known for her recent stage show with Ruby Wax, Losing It, as her own albums. But though they may have limited street recognisability, in the three cities they call home they are legendary for their hospitality. theartsdesk sampled some of this warmth in their London residence where, over tea, we discussed, amongst other things, dwarf choreography, mental illness and hanging out with Metallica.