Rafiq Bhatia and a new vintage of jazz

Rafiq Bhatia coasts into a Manhattan coffee shop with the easy gait of a man who refuses to carry 100 years of jazz history on his shoulders. "I have other things to carry," the 26-year-old guitarist says. "It's not that jazz smells funny and that I'm trying to stay away from it. I just don't see my output or my reference points that way. I've been really inspired by artists from the jazz community -- past and present -- and it's part of what I do. But so are many other things."