As we’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, Ari Hest is a hell of a songwriter, and I can remember a concert of his in which he’d just written a song he hoped someday to share with the lovely and talented Norah Jones. It never happened for Ari, so instead he usually just jokingly sings the Norah part in a high, smoky falsetto whenever he performs that song.

But duets featuring Jones and another performer most certainly have happened over the course of the last decade, which leads us to “…Featuring Norah Jones,” a compilation of songs that the sweet, contemporary jazz singer shares with other artists.

The list of musicians on this record is staggering—Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, Outkast, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Herbie Hancock, and the Foo Fighters, among many others. Stylistically the tracks cover the full gamut of musical styles, from soul to hip-hop and rock to, of course, jazz, and each and every one of them is as smooth and cool as we’ve all come to expect from Miss Jones. It’s a finely-tuned mix in the truest sense of the word, with plenty of creative and inventive stuff to fill the disc.

Sure, Norah Jones isn’t exactly a new and undiscovered artist, but this collection of tracks is classy stuff that casual fans of Jones aren’t likely to have heard before. Maybe, ten years from now, when “…Featuring Norah Jones 2” comes out, Ari Hest will find a way to be among the track listing.

Look, I know “Garden State” isn’t necessarily a cinematic masterpiece, but in 2004 when it hit theaters I was at the perfect age to really appreciate it. It was a coming-of-age film for a young man who was, in fact, coming of age, and I loved it.

But before the movie was even released, I developed an emotional attachment to the trailer, which I must have watched on apple.com about two hundred times. About halfway through, Frou Frou’s “Let Go,” the sort of main theme for “Garden State,” kicks in—and to this day it’s still one of the most moving and beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.

In the years since, Imogen Heap—Frou Frou’s lead vocalist—has earned some fame for “Hide and Seek,” which damn near everybody has heard at this point thanks to its appearance on the second season finale of “The O.C.” and subsequent Saturday Night Live spoof of it. More recently, that same song was sampled in Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say,” which was at one point the #1 song in America.

So it’s not like you’ve never heard this girl’s voice before, but “Details,” Frou Frou’s only album, is from an age before Heap was so well-known, and her partner on the project—Guy Sigsworth—deserves his fair share of the credit of the record’s beauty as well. The two co-wrote every song on the album, which includes “Let Go” and loads of other transient, ambient electronica that is both musically challenging and melodically pleasing.

There are rumors of a reunion between Heap and Sigsworth, but so far nothing official has come to fruition. Still, “Let Go” remains in the annals of life-altering music for me. Few tracks have ever affected me more. I loved it when I was coming of age, and now that I’m of age I love it even more. It’s aged like a fine cheese, and held up better than the movie that helped make it famous, though I’ll never bad mouth “Garden State” or Frou Frou. Don’t you do it, either.

In my experience, people listen to hip-hop for one of three reasons. They either want something to dance to, something that will bump in their car, or something with lyrics that actually have some meaning and poetry behind them. Once in a very rare while you find a rapper that can span all three of these requirements, but in general you’re lucky to find someone who covers two of the three. Joe Budden is one of those guys capable of batting 1.000, and in baseball that’d be like the greatest hitter of all time.

There’s no question that Budden is, in fact, a heavy hitter, especially lyrically. His new full-length solo mixtape, “Mood Muzik 4,” is rife with emotional prose with multi-syllabic rhymes and a flow that punches like a wiry welterweight.

We’ve come a long way from the “Pump It Up” days, way back Budden really was putting out tracks that could be rocked in clubs. He’s a more mature rapper now, focused more on the rhyme and the message more than anything. But that doesn’t mean the music suffers. On this latest mixtape offering from JB, the lead track is a sweet sample of Bon Jovi’s “Right Now,” and other songs like “1000 Faces” and “If All Else Fails” have hot instrumentals as well.

While this particular offering from Joe Budden isn’t all that heavy on tracks you’d shoot Jaeger bombs to, it’s definitely one a record with something to say, and in my world, that’s really all hip-hop has to do in order to be successful. We’re lucky, though, that Budden’s music does so much more.

Cartel – “Faster Ride”

The third single off of the third album for Cartel, “Faster Ride” is one of the better songs the Georgian band has put out since “Honestly,” which was five years ago. The new record is solid overall, but this latest single is our personal fave from the album.

Donnellshawn – “Learning Love”

This is unapologetic pop R&B, but it’s exactly the sort of unapologetic pop R&B that, if given the air time, ends up getting pimped by Ryan Seacrest on Sunday morning radio. Donnellshawn is a new artist about which not a whole lot is known (his tweets are “protected” for cripe’s sake.), but we’re digging the guy. This right here is a good track. Give her a gander…

Peedi Crakk & Li’l Cease featuring Black Rob – “I Don’t Know”

Long-time readers will know that there are a few artist and groups who can do no wrong in our eyes, and The Roots are one of them. So if they love Peedi Peedi, I’m going to love Peedi Peedi, too, and this new track featuring hip-hop mainstays Li’l Cease (formerly of Junior) and Black Rob (Whoa!) is right up the alley of rap super-sweetness, as we’d expect. The instrumental sounds like something from the Robin Hood/Braveheart era but with bass and a beat, and the hook is oddly catchy, hitting unexpected minor chords in a high-pitched chipmunk voice. All awesome. The whole caboodle.

I tripped and fell into listening to Buddy Guy way later than I’d like to admit. The man is a blues legend, obviously, and from Chicago no less, yet I grew up knowing the man’s name and little else. Pops raised us on James Taylor and Leonard Cohen, and musical culture in my elementary and junior high circles rarely extended beyond what was playing on the radio.

Plus, ya know, kids can’t appreciate the blues. Nothing crappy has happened to them yet, and even if it has they’re too young and naïve to truly appreciate just how crappy that crappy thing may have been.

As a twentysomething scraping his way through school, broke, and dating the most wrong girl God could’ve crafted for me, I got the blues, baby, and Buddy Guy is exactly where I ended up first. After falling in love with some of the older stuff he did with Junior Wells, I went ahead and bought every damn piece of material the man had ever made.

And now there’s “Living Proof,” the 74-year-old musician’s most recent full-length record, and I don’t love Mr. Guy any less than I did the first time I listened to “Drinkin’ TNT ‘n’ Smokin’ Dynamite.” This guy is still ripping solos like he’s 30.

A few years ago when B.B. King (who appears on the album, by the way) was touring after turning 80 years old, my brother and I went to one of the shows and couldn’t help but notice that he’d lost a few steps musically. Don’t get me wrong, the guy was entertaining as hell, playing all the classics and telling loads of great stories that only B.B. could tell. But as far as tearing off on ol’ Lucille like he used to… well, it just wasn’t the same.

Buddy, though, is still killing it. The first track on the album, “74 Years Young,” is high-energy, high-emotion blues at its finest. “Stay Around a Little Longer,” the track featuring King, is soulful and emotional and cool, while “Where the Blues Begins,” featuring Carlos Santana, is a classic example of Guy molding to the style of just about anybody he plays with.

Look, there isn’t a bad apple in the peck. It’s blues the best possible way blues can be done by the guy who helped define the modern iteration of the genre. You don’t even have to date a horrible woman or lose every dime to appreciate it.