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.

280

Album Review

Richard Drexler: Se

by Andrew Rowan
August 20, 2005

Pianist/bassist/vocalist Richard Drexler has crafted an eclectic recording, full of fire and humor, saluting the music of Johannes Brahms reinvented through Latin American rhythms. Along the way he also tips his hat to American popular music. The imaginative Drexler uses the vallenato and cumbia (Columbia), tango (Argentina), bolero (Cuba), merengue, pasajes and gaitas (Venezuela), festejo and lando (Peru), samba and bossa (Brazil), and candombe (Uruguay) to blur the distinctions seemingly separating classical, jazz, and Latin American music. Not ...

Album Review

Metal Caribe: Richie Zellon

by Ed Kopp
February 1, 1999

Here's a fun release that displays a high level of musicianship and a strong sense of humor. Driven by Richie Zellon's fiery guitar work and strong doses of percussion, Metal Caribe offers clever original compositions and electric Latin-jazz interpretations of pop, rock, and classical tunes.Richie Zellon is a Peruvian-born guitarist who currently resides in the U.S. The CD booklet proclaims that Zellon is “the Frank Zappa of Latin jazz," and while this description is sometimes valid, it only ...

105

Album Review

The High Pockets: Picasso's Dog

by Ed Kopp
December 1, 1998

Every year or so, just when I begin to think that the pop-jazz landscape is a barren wasteland, somebody releases a CD that knocks my socks off. Last year it was Jim Beard, this year it's The High Pockets.The High Pockets are an eight-piece group that mixes disparate ingredients from around the world in an unusual musical gumbo. Cajun-style accordian and New Orleans-style brass stand at the center of this Orlando band's inspired sound, and while the union ...