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
Don Rendell Quintet: Space Walk
by Chris May
As British jazz reaches new and unprecedented peaks of popularity, major labels are revisiting their vaults and rereleasing artistically enduring but long unavailable albums. Universal/Decca's British Jazz Explosion: Originals Re-Cut is the most ambitious of such reissue programs to be announced so far in 2021. It concentrates on the years 1965 -1972, a pivotal period in the coming of age of British jazz and one which continues to inspire the generation of young radicals who are making their mark in ...
read moreVarious: Journeys In Modern Jazz: Britain (1965-1972)
by Chris May
As British jazz in 2021 reaches domestic and international audiences of unprecedented size, so record companies are being emboldened to open up their archives and reissue long-buried treasures. So, too, are new labels being formed to make available recordings which have not previously been released, but which have survived in the tape libraries of the musicians who recorded them—or, in some cases, the libraries of their surviving family members. The most ambitious major label reissue program to ...
read moreMax Richter: Voices 2
by Nenad Georgievski
Following up on his deeply resonating album Voices (Decca, 2020) which found its inspiration in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and centred on the messages it sent in these problematic, dark political times, composer Max Richter comes up with a follow-up entitled Voices 2, and the results are mesmerizing. Most of the album was recorded during the same sessions that produced Voices, with additional sessions during lockdown when Richter recorded some of the solo piano parts at Abbey Road ...
read moreMax Richter: Voices
by Nenad Georgievski
Music is one of the most powerful means of expression. Artists have always been able to express and channel their innermost thoughts and emotions into their music. Regardless if it's a protest, a response to racism, civil rights songs, debate, speaking truth to power or a universal plea for peace, the artists have been channeling these notions and emotions into their creations to use them as a means to raise awareness and inspire change for the better. As singer and ...
read moreSeal: Standards
by Karl Ackermann
It shouldn't be a surprise that Seal would take on the American songbook, with a baritone that was made for classics like “Autumn Leaves" and “Love for Sale." Born Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel in Paddington, England, the singer, guitarist and composer rose to fame with his global hits, and Grammy-winning songs, “Crazy" and “Kiss From a Rose," both from his first self-titled album (Warner Music UK, 1991). That album--and a number of subsequent Seal releases--were produced by Trevor Horn of ...
read moreImelda May: Life. Love. Flesh. Blood.
by Doug Collette
Collaborating with Jeff Beck, Imelda May's kitschy presence as preserved for posterity on the iconic guitar hero's Rock 'n' Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul) (Atco, 2011)is in stark contrast to the sultry black and white portrait that adorns Life. Love. Flesh. Blood. Not surprisingly, then, the British chanteuse stakes out an equally sensuous, shadowy terrain on the record, beginning with the opening track “Call Me." The spacious depth of T Bone Burnett's production just about equals the glow ...
read moreBenedicta: Marian Chant from Norcia
by C. Michael Bailey
The mid-1990s so-called “new age" or “ambient" music discovered the Plainsong, leading to the release of Chant (Angel, 1973/1994) by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos. Such a spike in popularity in all things mystical was nothing novel at the end of the Twentieth Century (or any other post-civilization century, for that matter). Judging from the fact that recordings twenty years old at the time, by a non- descript group of cloistered clerics reflects that only the shallow ...
read moreJohn Williams: Guitar Recital
by AAJ Staff
John WilliamsGuitar RecitalDecca Records1996 (1959) In 1958, guitar virtuoso John Williams was a gifted teenager, and had studied with Andres Segovia. In that year he recorded an album of primarily Segovia-inspired (or themed) compositions from the growing classical guitar repertoire. The album, Guitar Recital (originally released on Delyse in 1959), was in two volumes, though the sessions were continuous. (The album has since been released by Decca). It does not contain ...
read moreElton John / Leon Russell: The Union
by C. Michael Bailey
Elton John and Leon Russell are not so unlikely musical colleagues. Russell is slightly the elder, at 68 to John's 63, and within the age difference of two brothers. Both emerged in the early '70s, that fertile period nurtured by Woodstock the year before, and the rise of album-oriented-rock FM radio after. Both are pianists and composers of repute, with similar percussive styles and deep furrows of dirt, church, and Delta. John reveals this to be no accident as he ...
read moreDavid Sanborn: Only Everything
by Joel Roberts
Only Everything is alto saxophonist David Sanborn's second straight release paying homage to one of his greatest and earliest influences, Ray Charles. While some jazz purists may dismiss Sanborn as a slick TV personality and practitioner of smooth or pop jazz, he's always had firm roots in bluesy, R&B-based jazz, dating to his early days playing with the likes of Albert King and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. And along with his more commercially calculated recordings, he's released some excellent ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 4
