Ever since the glory days of Jazz at the Philharmonic six decades ago, jazz shows have generally consisted of extended jam sessions that mix and match familiar and unfamiliar combinations of musicians. The 92nd Street Y’s Jazz in July concerts have always been more ambitious: Under the direction of Dick Hyman and now Bill Charlap, they stick to a theme, play specially commissioned arrangements, and force musicians to learn new songs rather than just jam on old favorites.

Thus, I don’t mind when a musician gets something wrong at a Jazz in July concert – artists tend to work harder on new material and relax more on songs they’ve done many times before. During “Hoagy’s Children,” a tribute to Hoagy Carmichael performed Tuesday night, Barbara Lea was letter-perfect on Carmichael’s obscure “Daybreak,” but slipped up during “Baltimore Oriole,” one of her signature songs. Not that it mattered: Ms. Lea was singing with total confidence and conviction, and in both cases more than put her message across. Her duet with Mr. Charlap on “Washboard Blues” showed what an amazing art song that 1925 classic is – the “Lush Life” of its day.

Likewise, the songwriter-pianistsinger Dave Frishberg, who normally plays his own work almost exclusively, learned a mess of both familiar and offbeat Hoagiana and got most of it exactly right. He sparkled on the wordy, intricate “The Old Music Master” (recorded mainly by both of its authors, Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, and in a rare transcription by Nat King Cole), but loused up the ending of the comparatively simple “Judy” (which no one, surprisingly enough, mentioned was the song that inspired Frances Gumm to change her name to Judy Garland).

Ms. Lea and Mr. Frishberg were merely the highlights of a first-rate composer-driven program. Most of the first half was instrumental, except for a few vocals from trumpeter Byron Stripling, whose singing has always struck me as artificially Armstrongian. Traveling up the lazy river were guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, bassist Jay Leonhart, and clarinetist Ken Peplowski. Mr. Charlap and the soprano saxophonist Jon Gordon kicked off the evening with a rubato treatment of “Stardust,” which the pianist followed up with a sprightly version of “One Morning in May,” from his 2002 Carmichael album “Stardust.”

There also was a side trip to honor Carmichael’s relationship with “his younger older brother,” as Mr. Charlap aptly put it, Bix Beiderbecke. Mr. Charlap and Scott Robinson, playing the C-melody saxophone, essayed a masterful duet on Bix’s “In a Mist.” Mr. Robinson is a marvel on the C-melody – the instrument of Frank Trumbauer, who worked closely with Beiderbecke and Carmichael – and gives that long-maligned horn new respectability. The first set reached its climax when Mr. Peplowski performed “Skylark,” a tune with a melody so perfect that jazzmen rarely improvise on it, followed by “Jubilee,” which, like Ellington’s “C-Jam Blues,” has very little melody and is strictly a vehicle for jamming.

Mr. Frishberg took over for the show’s final portion, most of which was a long medley of Carmichael’s “Southern” songs, including “Moon Country,” “New Orleans,” and “Memphis in June.” Even though Mr. Frishberg, like Carmichael himself, is from the Midwest, y’all could practically smell the honeysuckle – and chuckle at the homey references to cousins named Amanda and Cindy Lou. The whole company wound up with an extended jam on Carmichael’s decidedly northern “Old Man Harlem,” including an intricate arrangement that incorporated Ellington’s “Scronch” and minimalist lyrics by that famed Connecticut Yankee, Rudy Vallee, whose 101st birthday was yesterday.

Carmichael, who died in 1981, had the misfortune of being born in 1899, which means that his centennial was overshadowed by those of Duke Ellington, Noel Coward, Fred Astaire, and others. Mr. Charlap’s concert amounted to a great centennial celebration six years after the fact.

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On Wednesday night, producers Ettore Stratta and Pat Phillips presented “The Spirit of Django Reinhardt” at Alice Tully Hall. This is only their third annual Djangofest here, but Mr. Stratta and Mrs. Phillips (the latter of whom hosted, dressed like Annie Oakley) have long held a yearly Django week at Birdland and honored the legendary Gypsy guitarist and composer in concerts all over the world.

Were Jazz in July to put on a Django concert, they would doubtless present new arrangements of Reinhardt’s compositions and provide some background info on his place in 20th-century music history. The Stratta/Phillips events, however, strictly focus on virtuoso jamming by contemporary Gypsy and European players in the Reinhardt tradition, generally on jazz standards that Django recorded and some of his own compositions. These concerts tend to be fairly similar from year to year, but they’re always exciting; at the end of the evening, it’s hard to believe that three hours have passed.

Among the stars performing Wednesday night was Angelo Debarre, who along with Bireli Lagrene is the world’s leading Djangologist. The producers had also planned to bring in the father-and-son team of Dorado and Samson Schmitt, but since the elder Schmitt is apparently laid up with a broken arm, Samson performed without him. New to me were another father-son guitar team, the German Gypsies Joscho and Gunter Stephan. The non-guitar stars included Romanian violinist Florin Niculescu, Parisian accordionist Ludovic Beier, Illinois-born bassist Brian Torff, and Cuban clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera. The musicians ascended the stage in various combinations until they all ganged up on the finale.

As is often the case at Django concerts, the music got faster and faster and ever more intense as the evening progressed. If only the French could have fought as ferociously against the Nazis in 1940 as these musicians played “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Coquette,” and several of Reinhardt’s many variations on “I Got Rhythm.” They kicked off “It Don’t Mean a Thing” so killer-fast that Mr. D’Rivera pretended to bolt from the stage. But they also slowed down the tempo with ballads such as Reinhardt’s “Troublant Bolero,” and Mr. Debarre and Mr. Beier performed a vaudeville showpiece duet on the Brahms “Hungarian Dance” that could have been played on “Ed Sullivan.” The finale was a red-hot jam on “Minor Swing,” in which Mr. Niculescu offered his own tribute to the Mozart 250th.

Someday I would like to see someone like Wynton Marsalis or Bill Charlap mount a more formal tribute to Reinhardt the composer, but just the same, the twice-yearly Stratta/Phillips Django shows at Alice Tully and Birdland are to be eagerly anticipated and savored.