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
University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra: Embargo
by Jack Bowers
Talk about setting the bar high: on an album designed to showcase the talents of students in Professor Terry Promane's classes on arranging, the University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra's music director, Gordon Foote, chose to open Embargo with Rob McConnell's classic arrangement of the Billy Strayhorn warhorse, “Take the 'A' Train," thus giving the undergrads a formidable target at which to aim. Does their aim prove true? Beyond any doubt. The lone wayward shot occurs on the ...
read moreLiebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T
by Dan McClenaghan
Veteran jazz-er Dave Liebman and Mike Murley blow their saxophones like kindred souls on Live at U of T. In front of an appreciative audience, fronting an inspired bass/drum team, and no guitar or keyboard in the mix--the music is a mixture of liquid freedom, low flame fire, and relative restraint (the “restraint" thing in consideration much of Liebman's discography; the man can fly quite free when the inspiration strikes him). If you want to call it “Free," it would ...
read moreUniversity of Toronto 12TET: Rebirth
by Jack Bowers
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more congenial curtain-raiser than Jason Stillman's animated, inflexibly swinging “Contemporary Insanity," which opens Rebirth, the debut album by the University of Toronto's snug and well-upholstered 12TET. That's admittedly a tough act to follow, and while the ensemble gives it the old college try it doesn't always live up to the promise of that bright beginning, a shortcoming that can be ascribed in large measure to charts that, while purposeful and assured, simply aren't as ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 1
