In 2006 the Verve Music Group woke up to the wealth of classic material in its vaults, recorded under the Impulse imprint. The House that Trane Built (Impulse) is a four-CD set that documents a time of innovation and turmoil in jazz and should keep any aficionado happy until well into the new year.

Sony continued to mine the Miles Davis seam this year with another box set, The Cellar Door Sessions (Sony), which captures the great trumpeter as he crashes through the boundaries between jazz and rock.

But what about an Irish jazz CD for Christmas? This year saw a wealth of new material committed to CD in Ireland, the best of which included Habit of Energy (Terrace Records) by Oldsquarelines, Live in Dublin (Auand) by Ronan Guilfoyle's excellent international trio and Pa'l Que Se Va by the Argentinean/Irish duo of Dermot Dunne and Ariel Hernandez.

THE Send a Piana to Havana project, started 10 years ago by American piano tuner Ben Treuhaft, is a courageous and inspiring act of musical charity and Irish audiences get a chance to support it in the run-up to Christmas with star-studded concerts in Dublin and Galway.

As well as preventing arms and missiles from reaching Cuba, America's trade embargo against that country prevents dangerous implements like musical instruments, piano strings and indeed piano tuners from reaching the island. So back in 1994, Treuhaft applied to the Office of Missile and Nuclear Technology for permission to send unwanted American pianos to Cuba.

To his surprise, permission was granted, under the sole condition that the pianos not be used for "torture or human rights abuse".

Even under Bush, when the US administration's attitude to the project has become more hostile, Treuhaft and his friends have stuck to their task, insuring that some of the most fertile musical nurseries in the world have the means to teach the next generation.

The money raised by the concerts in Dublin's Vicar Street (10 December) and Galway's Black Box (13) will be used to send supplies, funds and three Irish piano tuners . . . Ciaran Ryan, Alex Jeffers, and Paul Wade . . . to Cuba to help set up a school to train piano tuners. The concerts will feature a truly unprecedented line-up, including Barry Douglas, Joanna McGregor, Micheal O'Suilleabhain and a special collaboration between Cuban pianist Vladimir Karell and Ireland's leading exponent of Cuban music, Conor Guilfoyle.

As well as raising money for an excellent cause, the concerts are a rare opportunity to see the embargo against jazz musicians sharing a stage with classical musicians lifted.

AS well as his prowess as an instrumentalist and a composer, which is considerable, trumpeter Dave Douglas has taken an active role in developing the means by which jazz musicians reach their audience. After years with various record labels, including a run of superb releases on the RCA/Bluebird, Douglas decided he needed to set up his own label . . . and so Greenleaf Music was born.

Now Douglas takes another step forward, making his live performances at the Jazz Standard in New York this week available on the web. The music from the entire six-night run will be recorded and posted on the web the following day, so that listeners can get a sense of how the group's approach to the Douglas songbook differs from one night to the next. For more information check out www. davedouglas. com or www. greenleafmusic. com.