The June Jazz Recovery Act

For the last half-century, summer has traditionally been jazz festival season. But when New York's centerpiece event, the JVC Jazz Festival, suddenly tanked last year, it left the avant-garde-oriented Vision Festival to hold the fort all by itself. But if 2009 was the year of the Jazz Recession, 2010 marks the start of the Jazz Recovery: Not only is there a replacement for the venerable JVC, but the annual Vision Fest has announced its most ambitious program to date. And, there's a whole new event in town as well. Jazz in June is back.

The new Carefusion Jazz Festival—with impresario George Wein's name in big letters on the schedule—is now the city's big mainstream event. Essentially filling in for the JVC, the festival's format follows that of Mr. Wein's New York events of the last 35 years or so, lasting 10 days with five or six events per night. Firstly, there are four big "headliner" concerts at Carnegie Hall. The hottest tickets are both piano-centric: the high-flying Keith Jarrett Trio (6/17) and the 70th birthday celebration (with Wayne Shorter, Terence Blanchard, Joe Lovano and Bill Cosby) of superstar Herbie Hancock (6/24).

Then, there are five slightly more specialized shows at...

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