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.

Album Review

Ballister: Chrysopoeia

by Mark Corroto
May 5, 2022

It is difficult to imagine a Ballister recording having its origins in any setting other than a live performance. The trio of saxophonist Dave Rempis, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love fuels each performance with the audience's energy on all their recordings, including Chrysopoeia, their tenth. Not that the trio could not produce their music in a studio setting, it is just the intensity of their free jazz performances would not contain the fevered eruptions available to the music ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado Northern Liberties: We Are Electric

by John Sharpe
April 30, 2022

Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado hits the jackpot with the debut by his Northern Liberties quartet. He's found gifted collaborators in the Norwegian threesome of trumpeter Thomas Johansson, drummer Gard Nilssen and bassist Jon Rune Strøm. Amado's preferred domain is muscular free jazz. It's territory he's thoroughly explored with his Motion Trio, supplemented by guests like trumpeter Peter Evans and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and with his This Is Our Language band with Joe McPhee. While the Scandinavian ...

Album Review

The Nu Band: In Memory of Mark Whitecage: The Nu Band Live At The Bopshop

by Mike Jurkovic
January 14, 2022

The fearless improvised legacy of veteran, free bop sax man Mark Whitecage may not hold a prominent place in the immediate lexicon of upstarts and legends, but the man could blow his horn. Whitecage could dice and slice a piece of music, solemn or otherwise, to shreds with his sharp metallic, testosterone tone then reassemble it seamlessly with his long, flowing phrases. So it is fitting and more than welcome that he brings it big time on this final recording ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado Northern Liberties: We Are Electric

by Mark Corroto
January 10, 2022

The predicament with modern albums is that an album is often more than just one album. With the advent of streaming music, and compact discs before it, music expands beyond the unit we traditionally designated as side one or side two of an LP. A perfect example of this concept is We Are Electric by the Portuguese-Norwegian collaboration Rodrigo Amado Northern Liberties. Three of the four tracks here could easily be considered a freestanding LP side and, if that were ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado Northern Liberties: We Are Electric

by Troy Dostert
January 9, 2022

By all accounts, 2021 was a very good year for Rodrigo Amado. One of the leading lights of the Portuguese avant-garde, the indefatigable tenor saxophonist first released The Field (NoBusiness), featuring his Motion Trio (with cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini) alongside guest pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and Let the Free Be Men (Trost), with his now-frequent collaborators saxophonist Joe McPhee, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Chris Corsano. But if these two albums come to overshadow We Are Electric, ...

Album Review

Nu Band: In Memory of Mark Whitecage: The Nu Band Live At The Bopshop

by Troy Dostert
January 6, 2022

One of the underappreciated veterans of free jazz, Mark Whitecage passed away in March of 2021, leaving a well-established legacy of strong recordings in which his searing yet soulful alto saxophone merged with many of the more visible figures on the scene. Joe McPhee, Anthony Braxton, and Annette Peacock are just a few of the luminaries who partnered with Whitecage over the years. Perhaps his most fruitful period was the late 1990s and early 2000s, alongside the musicians in the ...

Album Review

The Nu Band: In Memory of Mark Whitecage: The Nu Band Live At The Bopshop

by Dan McClenaghan
January 5, 2022

Multiple reedman Mark Whitecage (1937-2021) may not have enjoyed the profile he deserved, but he was an extraordinary improvisational free-jazz force who recorded prolifically for CIMP Records. Bassist Joe Fonda, a member of Whitecage's Nu Band, enjoyed a forty year musical involvement with the man, and In Memory Of Mark Whitecage: The Nu Band Live At The Bop Shop is Fonda's posthumous tip of the hat to his old running mate. It is a recording bursting with the lifeforce --one ...