Jazz Articles
Our daily articles are 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.
Sign in to customize your My Articles page —or— Filter Article Results
Mata Atlantica: Retiro e Ritmo
by Mark Sullivan
Retiro e Ritmo is a love letter to Mata Atlântica, the coastal rain forest of Brazil, and a call to help preserve and protect this beautiful habitat. The music supports that goal not by quoting or referencing Brazilian music directly, but by building a complex musical ecosystem that evokes it, obliquely creating a sense of place. The album is the brainchild of co-producer Mathias Derer, motivated by a 2017 Brazilian visit. Although he does not perform, he composed ...
read moreMata Atlantica: Retiro e Ritmo
by John Ephland
The coastal rainforest of Brazil, otherwise known as Mata Atlantica, and “its beauty and vivacity" are the inspiration for Retiro e Ritmo. It is an album frontloaded with a varied cast of characters from hither and yon. Maybe that casting is behind a project seeking to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing shit-storm that includes not only the Amazon but the whole planet. Retiro e Ritmo is deceptive, calling attention to a source of worldwide calamity all the ...
read moreDeep Energy Orchestra: Playing with Fire
by Chris M. Slawecki
Deep Energy Orchestra is unique in its musical repertoire, approach, and style, all of which burn light and heat into their first live recording Playing with Fire. DEO's lead voice comes equally from progressive guitar pot-stirrer and King Crimson mainstay Trey Gunn; Carnatic percussionist V. Selvaganish, a member of John McLaughlin's transcendent group Remember Shakti; electric violinist Radhika Iyer; and bassist Jason Everett, who wrote many of these tunes; plus a classical string ensemble. Playing with Fire sort ...
read moreSonar: Live At Moods
by Chris M. Slawecki
Recorded Live at Moods jazz club in Zürich (Switzerland) in May 2018, this set reconnects guitar electronics visionary David Torn with the band Sonar. Torn played with Sonar on their previous album Vortex, and this live set picks up three tunes ("Waves and Particles," “Red Shift" and “Lookface!") from that earlier collaboration. How does Sonar make their music sound so different? For starters, founding guitarist Stephan Thelen and Bernhard Wagner play guitars, and Christian Kuntner plays bass, in ...
read moreSonar: Live At Moods
by Mark Sullivan
Swiss experimentalists Sonar found a new groove on their album Vortex (RareNoiseRecords, 2018): the marriage of their intricate pattern playing with the American guitarist/live looper David Torn's raw emotional abandon created a rich synthesis. This live album is a celebration of that sound, but it is much more than a live version of their collaboration in the studio. Opener “Twofold Covering" starts out in fresh territory, adding Torn to a track from Sonar's Static Motion (Cuneiform Records, 2014). ...
read moreSecurity Project: Contact
by Geno Thackara
It's impossible to describe an outfit like the Security Project without that troublesome (if not entirely inaccurate) phrase “tribute band" popping up, complete with the inevitable baggage that term implies. It's usually reserved for countless local-level acts that entertain bar crowds with predictable staples on any given weekend, sure, but this group shoots for something much more sophisticated and exploratory. They almost completely eschew the obvious hits of the Peter Gabriel catalogue and primarily delve into the groundbreaking and unclassifiable ...
read moreZero Times Everything: Sonic Cinema
by Glenn Astarita
Multi-instrumentalist Richard Sylvarnes encapsulates the trio's approach by stating: “In film making it is critical to create a sense of space; a world wholly imaginary that we can enter completely and without reservation. That is the first critical step in the creative process of Zero Times Everything." Therefore, it must be asserted that the musicians have conclusively accomplished their mission on this immensely compelling album that bridges progressive rock with ambient-electronica, noise- shaping processes and a host of other musical ...
read moreSecurity Project: Live 1
by John Kelman
While so many singer-songwriters of the past 50 years have been covered time and again-even fostering tribute bands that recreate the live experience as close to perfection as possible-one of the most important, groundbreaking and forward-thinking songwriters of the past five decades has, for the most part, been overlooked. Peter Gabriel may have spent the first few years of his career in progressive rock trendsetters Genesis, but it's been his solo career, which began in 1977, that ultimately elevated the ...
read morePray For Brain: None Of The Above
by Glenn Astarita
New Mexico is known for its picturesque landscape, arts & crafts and Mother Earth type activities, but not cited for harvesting diverse progressive rock power trios. In addition, the band's marketing pitch asks, “What happens when two Buddhists and a Muslim meet to make music?" Evidently, a whole lot is going on, as the musicians' incorporate an electro-organic feast, enveloping a 3D outlook, spanning Middle Eastern oud-based rock, Indofunk, jazz fusion and hearty doses of improvisation. Here, exceptionally versatile guitarist ...
read moreMatte Henderson with Marco Minnemann: The Veneer Of Logic
by Glenn Astarita
Guitarist, composer and futurist Matte Henderson is a former student of iconic progressive rock guitarist and founding father of King Crimson, Robert Fripp. He integrates some classic prog fundamentals such as odd-metered crunch chord voicings and wily rhythmic episodes, abetted by his collaborator and all-universe drummer Marco Minnemann. But Henderson spices up the program with muted voicemail vocals by David Torn and Dr. Know (Bad Brains) on a few tracks, amid recordings from prison parole hearings that spark remembrances of ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 5
