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.
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Rahsaan Barber: Six Words
by Jack Bowers
The Six Words that epitomize woodwind artist Rahsaan Barber's fifth recording as a leader came to him via trumpeter Wynton Marsalis: “There is power in this music." And as Barber affirms on this tasteful studio date, aside from power there is depth and refinement as well. Barber commands a tight-knit sextet, so much so that it is hard to believe that most of them had never played together before gathering in Nashville, Tennessee in December 2020 to record ...
Continue ReadingRahsaan Barber: Six Words
by Chris May
Six Words is saxophonist Rahsaan Barber's fourth album on his Nashville-based label Jazz Music City, and the first to be conceived as a suite. The titular six words are something Wynton Marsalis said in a conversation with Barber: “There is power in this music." With that thought in mind, Barber composed a series of pieces focused on protest, personal liberation and love, and on the penultimate track, grief, in a tender elegy for Roy Hargrove, “Remembering Roy." ...
Continue ReadingJohn Alvey: Loft Glow
by Chris May
Such is the proliferation of albums which in the 2020s are taking jazz in new and exciting directions--see AAJ's Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition round-up here--that it is easy to pass over albums which have their feet firmly planted in the tradition, and which show no ambition to redefine it, but which are by any standards fresh and first-class jazz. Such an album is Nashville-based drummer John Alvey's debut, Loft Glow. On this love ...
Continue ReadingImer Santiago: Hidden Journey
by Hrayr Attarian
Nashville based trumpeter Imer Santiago's debut album Hidden Journey is an engaging, diverse set of nine originals and two standards, that maintains its momentum from the first note to the last. Santiago's compositions sometimes in collaboration with saxophonist and label founder Rahsaan Barber are primarily hard bop vehicles with a variety of flavors that allow the individual musicians space for short yet crisp and elegant expressions of spontaneity. The opening tune “Girls' Night Out" harks back to the ...
Continue ReadingRahsaan Barber: Everyday Magic
by Dan Bilawsky
An album title like Everyday Magic implies that inspired artistry can be as consistent and routine as the rising and setting of the sun and, while that's rarely the case, that philosophy basically rings true on this album. Saxophonist Rahsaan Barber put together a program of nine originals that detail his diversified stylistic portfolio and skills on a variety of horns. Barber's brawny tenor saxophone sound comes to the fore early in the album ("Jubilee"), and his ...
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