Jazz Articles
Daily articles including interviews, profiles, live reviews, film reviews and more... all carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our future articles page. Read our daily album reviews.
January 2023
by Pat Youngspiel
Masaki Hayashi Group Blur The Border S/N Alliance 2023 In contrast to its sister-label Nagalu Records, Shinya Fukumori's S/N alliance is devoted to music and musicians outside of Japan, bringing idioms from classical music and improvised streams under one roof, to be shared across borders. And pianist Masaki Hayashi's Blur The Border fits right on the cusp of those idioms--too through-composed and arranged, with traits from European classical music, to simply be considered ...
read moreBass Extremes: S'Low Down
by Chris Jisi
Thirty years ago, a simple pairing changed the trajectory of bass. Steve Bailey and Victor Wooten, bonded by their mutual fretboard wizardry, sharp wit, and teaching philosophies, formed Bass Extremes, and the instrument and its community were forever transformed. The concept was quite ambitious. Steve was a rapidly ascending anchor for Dizzy Gillespie, Paquito D'Rivera and the Rippingtons, who had found his voice on the 6-string fretless bass and was taking the instrument to uncharted heights, with a soon to ...
read moreBrad Mehldau: Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles
by Mike Jurkovic
In the press release and liner notes, Brad Mehldau, a spiritual man who delves deeply into subjects that matter to him, talks a lot about the Fab Four's continued universality and to the strangeness of their originality and our assimilation of it. But he never really gets to the point as clearly, personally and succinctly as he does when he plays the music. Because at the end of the day, despite and including the dotted eighth notes, snipped rhythms, big ...
read moreChristopher Burnett: The Standards, Vol. 2 (Live at The Drum Room in Kansas City)
by Kyle Simpler
During its heyday, The Drum Room in The Hotel President was one of Kansas City's most popular jazz venues. Performers such as Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, and Benny Goodman all played there. The Drum Room closed during the late seventies but was brought back to life a few years later and, between 2006 and 2007, The Christopher Burnett Quartet performed there on the first Saturday night of each month. That was Burnett's first outing as a bandleader and his tenure ...
read moreA Musical Tribute To The Late Guitarist Jeff Beck
by Len Davis
A musical tribute to the late Jeff Beck in the first half hour. New releases from Greg Spero, Swedish accordionist Anatole Muster, The Resonance Project, and The Headhunters.Playlist Jeff Beck “You Know What I Mean" from Blow By Blow (Epic) 00:00 Jeff Beck “Led Boots" from Wired (Epic 05:26) Jeff Beck-Jan Hammer “Blue Wind" from Live (Epic) 10:57 Jeff Beck “The Pump" from There And Back (Epic) 16:23 Jeff Beck-Jan Hammer “Star Cycle" from Live At Hollywood Bowl ...
read moreSpinifex, Greene / Smith / Moses & Devin Brahja Waldman Ra Kalam Bob Moses
by Maurice Hogue
This edition of One Man's Jazz tends to a lot of music out on the edge, starting with a tune from a 2019 release called Life's Intense Mystery by Burton Greene, Damon Smith & Bob Moses, before heading to the powerful and unpredictable band from Amsterdam, Spinifex; they've added singers to the mix on their latest. After that check out the sounds of the Blue Lines Trio, also from Amsterdam, Peter Van Huffel's Gorilla Mask, the Chicago guitar/bass duo of ...
read moreHow Do You Rate Miles Davis’ Music, On Record and Live, In The 1980s?
by Ian Patterson
The release of The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: That's What Happened 1982-1985 invites renewed reflection on Miles Davis' music in the 1980s. A few tracks aside, these studio outtakes from the recording sessions that produced Star People (Columbia, 1983), Decoy (Columbia, 1984) and You're Under Arrest (Columbia, 1985) don't amount to a whole heap of beans, which is hardly surprising if they were not good enough to make the official album releases. But the previously unreleased live album ...
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