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 Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.

Album Review

Sam Robinson: 'Chasin' the Dream'

Read "'Chasin' the Dream'" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 6, 2026

Chasin' the Dream is the fourth album as leader by Chicago-based trumpeter Sam Robinson who keeps chasin' his dream of success as a jazz musician and composer even while holding down a full-time gig as a middle school French teacher and trebling as a husband and father. Although that is a lot of grub to pile on anyone's plate, Robinson shows here that there is no way the jazz entrée can cause him any discomfort. In other words, ...

Album Review

Mark Sherman: Bop Contest

Read "Bop Contest" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
December 9, 2025

Vibraphonist and composer Mark Sherman has long been recognized as one of the music's most articulate advocates for straight-ahead values, grounding his virtuosity in the clarity and craftsmanship that define the bop lineage. Bop Contest, his 2025 release, continues that tradition with poise and conviction. Surrounded by a top-tier rhythm section comprising pianist Donald Vega, the legendary bassist Ron Carter, the exuberant drummer Carl Allen, and guest trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, Sherman delivers a program that balances reverence for ...

Album Review

Mark Sherman: Bop Contest

Read "Bop Contest" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 23, 2025

Following four well-received albums on which he played piano, the versatile Mark Sherman has placed the keyboard in the capable hands of Donald Vega and returned to his main instrument, the vibraphone, for the eloquent and delightful Bop Contest, Sherman's twenty-second recording in a prestigious career that has spanned nearly half a century. Although Sherman has shared the studio with a who's who of renowned bassists, he had never released an album, until now, with the Hall ...

Album Review

Erin McDougald: Outside the Soiree

Read "Outside the Soiree" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
June 12, 2018

Erin McDougald is a big-voiced Chicago-based singer who calls herself the “Flapper Girl" after the “flappers" of the 1920s,' looking back on them as emancipated, fearless women. That identity carries into her singing which comes across with a confidence and flair you rarely hear among younger jazz vocalists today. With her voice carrying a low, sultriness mixed with jazzy flexibility, she does not overtly sound like any of the great singers of the past but she has a versatility and ...

Album Review

Josh Maxey: Celebration of Soul

Read "Celebration of Soul" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
September 18, 2015

Celebration of Soul is the tenth and final album in a series of recordings made in just three years by guitarist/composer Josh Maxey. Such a uniquely prolific output did not happen by accident. Maxey says “The key to the series has been having a goal beyond what I would have considered reasonable." The series is a creative declaration from a musician who considers himself an improviser, composer and bandleader in equal parts. It documents 50 original compositions with 20 musicians. ...

Album Review

Tim Hegarty: Tribute

by Dan Bilawsky
March 24, 2014

Tim Hegarty's Tribute is an audible panegyric on the great saxophonist-composers. It's a well-crafted, straightforward date that highlights Hegarty's love for those who've come before and the work that they've done on paper and on record. The list of saxophonists that Hegarty has studied includes George Coleman, Jimmy Heath, Frank Foster, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, and Michael Brecker; the first four on that list are represented on the composition side during this program ...

Extended Analysis

Project THEM: Project THEM

by Dave Wayne
January 28, 2014

Vibraphonist Mark Sherman has been knocking around for a while, and though he's a seasoned professional who's won several Downbeat polls it seems that he's one of those artists that's perpetually seen as a newcomer. It's telling that his Downbeat wins were in the “Rising Star" category, though he's been active on the New York jazz scene since the late 1970s. Initially a jazz drummer, Sherman-who still gigs on drums, and is a very adept jazz pianist-studied classical music at ...

Album Review

Jeff Holmes Quartet: Of One's Own

Read "Of One's Own" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 2, 2012

It's not the job of liner notes to critically appraise the recording for which they were written. Liner notes are supposed to be laudatory, occasionally hagiographic, but they're never meant to critique. That's the job of the review. Reviews don't make good liner notes and vice versa. Exceptions prove rules, however. So congratulations must go to Arturo O'Farrill, because his excellent liner notes for the debut album from pianist Jeff Holmes' Quartet--the equally excellent Of One's Own--could readily serve as ...

Album Review

Joe Alterman: Give Me The Simple Life

Read "Give Me The Simple Life" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 17, 2012

Bruce Lindsey, in his review of Joe Alterman's Give Me The Simple Life, notes that the young pianist has..."the feel of a musician who's been immersed in his chosen music for decades." Citing Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson and Red Garland as influences, Altman betrays influences that further give bona fides to his experience beyond youth. Chief among these influences is Garland, who held the piano chair in Miles Davis' first great quintet with John Coltrane, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe ...

Album Review

Joe Alterman: Give Me The Simple Life

Read "Give Me The Simple Life" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
July 5, 2012

There's a tension for many young jazz musicians, between the desire to start recording and the rather contrary need to develop technically and aesthetically before going public. Sometimes there is no tension: Joe Alterman is a case in point. The pianist may be a mere stripling in his early 20s, but he has the technique, the understanding and, most importantly, the feel of a musician who's been immersed in his chosen music for decades. Give Me The Simple Life, his ...