Let’s talk about the difference between minimal and maximal: Duke Ellington was noted for his soaring, exquisite, and gloriously idiosyncratic melodies, but once in a while the Maestro came up with songs such as “C-Jam Blues” or “Mainstem,” which almost seem like exercises in building supremely catchy tunes out of the smallest possible number of notes. Lest we forget, in the opening of his Fifth Symphony (in the same key as “C-Jam Blues”), which might be called the greatest hook in history, Beethoven said everything he needed to say in only four notes.

During its opening set on Wednesday night at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, the Kenny Burrell Quintet used “Mainstem” as a statement of purpose. This is an exuberant, outgoing ensemble, one that treats modern jazz not as elitist music for insiders and fellow musicians but, without stooping to a condescending pop or R&B sound, as an upbeat instrumental art.

Mr. Burrell’s career, contrastingly, can safely be described as maximal: One of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time, Mr. Burrell can lay claim to what is arguably the most prolific career in the history of the instrument. Arriving at roughly the same time as Tal Farlow and Barney Kessel, he helped usher in the resurgence of the jazz guitar at the dawn of the 12-inch LP era. He recorded prolifically for virtually every label in existence (most famously for the legendary Blue Note 1500 series), and shared the stage with just about every leading figure in jazz, from funk masters Jimmy Smith and Stanley Turrentine to envelope pusher John Coltrane.

The most prominent member of Mr. Burrell’s quintet is the only one whom I hadn’t heard of: Tenor saxophonist Tivon Pennicott is a 22-year-old Atlanta native whose presence in what is otherwise an all-star band underscores what is most impressive about the group’s 77-year-old leader. Like Mr. Burrell, Mr. Pennicott is an extroverted player who holds the stage without doing what most musicians his age do — namely, drown an audience in a deluge of notes, so many and so fast that they have no choice but to pay attention yet become exhausted in the process. Mr. Pennicott played his feature, “In a Sentimental Mood,” with phrasing that indicated he had learned the tune from the classic Ellington-Coltrane recording, only with a warmer, more personal tone in the tradition of the so-called boudoir tenors, such as Houston Person.

The rest of the group is made up of the pianist Benny Green, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Clayton Cameron, best known for his long service with Tony Bennett, who also appears with Mr. Burrell on his latest Blue Note album, “Birthday Bash: Live at Yoshi’s.”

Both the album and the Dizzy’s set reflect Mr. Burrell’s lifelong, vociferous championing of Ellington. The live show also included a gregarious quasi-calypso treatment of “Rain Check,” by Ellington swingman Billy Strayhorn, and the album features a subset of Ellingtonia that builds to “Take the ‘A’ Train.” More important, the album also offers an entire segment of Mr. Burrell playing with Gerald Wilson’s full big band — the latest in a series of large ensemble projects that includes his 1965 meeting with Gil Evans and the 1967 “Ode to 52nd Street.” Jazz at Lincoln Center could do worse than to stage a full-scale concert of Mr. Burrell’s works for guitar and orchestra.

Along the way, Mr. Green offered a lovely, unaccompanied reading of “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” but most of the honors belonged to Mr. Burrell. On “Live at Yoshi’s,” the guitarist is joined by the flautist Hubert Laws on J.J. Johnson’s “Lament,” but in person he played the melody all by himself. In doing so, he evoked Richard Rodgers’s “My Romance” and transformed the tune into the most rapturously romantic reading of the jazz standard I’ve ever heard. It was at this point that the waitress at Dizzy’s presented me with a menu and asked if I wanted any dessert; in the middle of this performance, the question seemed redundant.

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For a pianist to salute another pianist, or a baritone to sing the repertoire of another baritone, is to open a Pandora’s box. Yet Michael Feinstein’s “The Sinatra Project,” which is both his new Concord album and the title of his show this week at the Regency, demonstrates the difference between honoring the legacy of an iconic artist and merely trying to ride his reputation, hoping his magic will rub off.

This is perhaps the most thoughtful Sinatra homage since Tony Bennett’s, and has the feeling of being prepared by one die-hard Sinatra junkie for the express benefit of the rest of us — a master’s thesis in more tangibly enjoyable form. Mr. Feinstein and the arranger-conductor Bill Elliott explore the less-traveled but no less brilliant corners of the Sinatra canon, taking some of his more marginal songs and transforming them into full-blown Billy May-style orchestrations that the Chairman cold have sung in his glory years of the mid-1950s.

One highlight is a Cole Porter fantasia that could be titled either “Begin the Skin” or “I’ve Got You Under My Beguine,” incorporating Nelson Riddle’s signature baritone horn vamps and flute filigrees. Mr. Feinstein works hard to do justice to Sinatra’s effortless rhythmic style (and certainly doesn’t embarrass himself), but he’s more comfortable showcasing his trademark intimacy with his own piano on “The Same Hello, the Same Goodbye,” an almost frighteningly autobiographical ballad written for Sinatra by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Working in an extra-large ballroom space in the hotel, Mr. Feinstein is the diametric opposite of another standards-singing Michael, namely Buble; and unlike him, Mr. Feinstein clearly knows the difference between a tribute and a rip-off.

wfriedwald@nysun.com