The spring of 2005 marks the first full season of Jazz at Lincoln Center at their new Rose Hall multiplex facility, which opened halfway through the last fall season. The first big concert arrives this weekend, and it is a good example of Jazz at Lincoln Center reaching out to musicians who haven’t played within its confines before.

This is “The Music of John Coltrane” (March 25 & 26) as played by the San Francisco Jazz Collective, featuring Joshua Redman and Bobby Hutcherson. This collaboration between Jazz at Lincoln Center and SFJazz is notable in that the latter is a formal organization for jazz at roughly the same point organizationally as Jazz at Lincoln Center was 10 years ago. Its artistic director, Mr. Redman, is – like Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Wynton Marsalis – a young, highly personable avatar who can do virtually anything on his instrument.

A collaboration between the two organizations gives SFJazz a presence on the East Coast and helps Jazz at Lincoln Center live up to its mandate of representing the entire jazz world. And a program of the music of John Coltrane, played by a band that includes vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and pianist Renee Rosness, is bound to be a knockout.

The Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola schedule includes several essential gigs, starting with one close to home. This weekend, the DCCC features multi-reed player and composer Ted Nash (until March 27), known for recreating the style of the great saxophone stylists in performance by Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. His own band, Odeon, is considerably more experimental, with a lineup of violin, accordion, tuba, and trombone, and the remarkable drummer Matt Wilson.

This is a good example of the kind of contemporary band the club should be presenting on a regular basis, and I hope they’ll soon present such groups led by players who aren’t members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center organization.

Miles Davis once said that he always wanted to have a son who played piano like Ahmad Jamal. I always thought that if he had a daughter, she’d sing like Ernestine Anderson. Miss Anderson, who hasn’t appeared in a New York club in far too many years, is a fine blues and ballads stylist out of the church of Dinah Washington. She’ll be appearing here (March 30 to April 3) in a 90th birthday salute to Billie Holiday. Close enough.

The biggest news at Dizzy’s this spring is a three-week celebration of one of the great living jazz pianists, Kenny Barron. Thus the club named after Dizzy Gillespie gives just due to one of the great trumpeter’s most important accomplices.

The first week (April 5 to April 10), it’s a Latinate lineup with guitar and percussion. The second (April 12 to 17) features Mr. Barron with an all-star, bebop-ish sextet including trumpeter Eddie Henderson and alto saxophonist Vincent Herring. The third (April 19 to 24) will show why Mr. Barron is regarded as the master of the piano trio, in a threesome with bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Grady Tate.

There’s so much activity in Dizzy’s that the other Jazz at Lincoln Center spaces might feel overshadowed. The big concert for Lincoln Center Jazz is “The Swinging Music of Thad Jones” (May 19 to 21), the gifted composer-arranger who wrote for Count Basie for 10 years before founding with Mel Lewis the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.

But the two most anticipated events in the Rose Theater are a doubleheader of two younger pianos, The Marcus Roberts Trio and the Jason Moran Trio (April 22 & 23). I haven’t heard Mr. Roberts in a while, and am anxious to find out what he’s up to, but I can tell you that the Jason Moran Trio is one of the quintessential groups of contemporary jazz.

I hope I’m not being entirely Lincoln Centric, but it seems to me that the other important clubs around New York have upped their programming to compete with the newcomer. There’s some very promising music at Iridium, for example, including a return engagement of the Monksiland band (March 30 to April 3) with Dave Douglas and Roswell Rudd. This year’s gig features Don Byron in place of the late Steve Lacy.

There are other tributes to masters present and past, in the form of an 84th birthday salute to percussion master Paquito D’Rivera with an all-star lineup (April 21 to 24). Another living legend, Freddy Hubbard, appears with David Weiss’s New Jazz Composer’s Octet, in a commendable meeting of the classic and the cutting edge (April 28 to May 1). Birelli Lagrene (May 11 to 15) is one of the great living guitarists in any genre or style, and that his gig at Iridium is billed as “The Music of Django Reinhardt” is icing on the cake. Finally, the Charles Mingus Big Band, appearing on Tuesday evenings, is also an essential New York experience.

The offerings at the Blue Note have been getting progressively starrier, including this week’s James Moody 80th birthday celebration (until March 27), which is practically a festival unto itself. Over six shows, Mr. D’Rivera, Ray Barretto, Roy Hargrove, Slide Hampton, Frank Wess, Claudio Roditti, and Kenny Barron all are appearing. On Saturday night (March 26), George Wein will emcee, and “surprise special guests” are featured.

There are also some impressive double bills forthcoming – two-hour presentations that are practically full-length concerts: Ron Carter and Karrin Allyson (March 29 to April 3); Mary Stallings (like Ernestine Anderson, a soulful West Coast singer not heard often enough in the city); and Hank Jones (April 12 to 17). The big surprise is avant-garde virtuoso Arthur Blythe, who hasn’t had a major gig around here in a while, will front a very star heavy lineup (April 19) with the equally prodigious Dewey Redman, organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, harmolodic guitarist James Blood Ulmer, and drummer Jeff Tain Watts.

Birdland, the club named after Charlie Parker, is billed as “The Jazz Corner of the World” even though it has never been on a corner. Two outstanding singers are appearing soon, musical comedy’s Tom Wopat (April 4) and Andy Bey (March 30 to April 2). Also a must: vibrophonist Gary Burton’s Generations band (April 27 to 30), co-starring his much-heralded protege, guitarist Julian Lage.

A few years ago, Birdland built up a reputation as home for big bands – the Ellington Orchestra continues to hold forth on Tuesdays, preceded by David Ostwald’s Armstrong Centennial. The most anticipated big band gig this Spring is bassist Dave Holland’s Orchestra (April 13 to 16). Mr. Holland is celebrating his first CD on his own label (“Overtime,” Dare 2 Records).

Now Birdland might also be named “Mabel-Land,” as the center for an increasing number of cabaret-oriented programs, like the revue “Singing Astaire” (with Eric Comstock, Christopher Gines, and Hilary Kole on weekend matinees) and the open-mic presentation “Cast Party” on Monday evenings.

Regular weeknight programming, which I associate with Birdland, is currently catching on all over. Both Sweet Rhythm and the Jazz Standard offer weekly evenings with jazz vocalists (on Tuesdays and Mondays, respectively).The big tickets at Jazz Standard are Grammy-winner Maria Schneider’s jazz orchestra this weekend (March 24 to 27) and the World Sax Quartet (March 29 to April 3) next week – a heavy-duty event, in that the fab four haven’t been in a New York club this decade.

The club’s most essential event for April is the annual Jazz Composer’s Collective Festival (April 13 to 18). This will feature more than a dozen outstanding bands, led by some of the most stimulating player writers on the current scene: Ben Allison, Matt Wilson, Ted Nash, and an evening of the music of the brilliant but elusive tenor champ Lucky Thompson. This festival consolidates the Jazz Standard’s position as geographically and physically in between downtown experimental clubs like Tonic and star-centric Midtown spots like Iridium.

Finally, there’s the grandfather of all jazz clubs, the venerable Village Vanguard, run by the mother of all club operators, Lorraine Gordon. For its 70th season, the Vanguard is presenting its own orchestra (even as Lincoln Center celebrates the band’s founder, Thad Jones).

Next week, Kurt Rosenwinkel – a guitarist who can safely be described as cutting-edge – comes in with a quintet that costars the tremendous tenor Mark Turner. April is all Vanguard regulars. First, two weeks of Bill Charlap (April 5 to 10), who competes with Jason Moran as the young leader of the most consistently rewarding piano trio around. Then Carol Sloane (April 19 to 24), an outstanding veteran singer only now getting her due. Then the Lou Donaldson-Lonnie Smith Quartet (April 26 to May 1), playing a kind of roots music that’s equal parts bebop and soul jazz.

Here’s more evidence, if any were needed, that the music is healthier than ever.