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
Gordon Grdina: Boiling Point
by Mike Jurkovic
For all its unstinting muscularity, feverish virtuosity and concentrated interplay, Canadian guitarist/oudist Gordon Grdina's first of two simultaneous summer releases, Boiling Point, could easily have been entitled Shock and Awe or Scorched Earth or perhaps even Ground Zero. Because as densely and wirily structured as these six Grdina comps are, Lower East Side piano legend Matt Mitchell and equally lauded drummer Jim Black bash away to the heart of matter, clearing the way for Grdina to crunch, skronk, and ruminate ...
read moreGordon Grdina's Nomad Trio: Boiling Point
by Dan McClenaghan
Even if Gordon Grdina does not release another album in 2022, the year should be considered as the time when it all came together for the Vancouver-based guitarist and oud-ist. Oddly Enough: The Music Of Tim Berne, Night's Quietest Hour and Pathways, all on Attaboygirl Records, were released in the first six month of 2022--a productive time. Add to that Boiling Point, the second outing by Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio. Grdina's artistry is hard to pin down. Free ...
read moreRedGreenBlue: The End And The Beginning
by Chris May
RedGreenBlue sound like they have emerged from the same synapse-snapping dope bunker that La Monte Young and Jon Hassell exited with their Theatre Of Eternal Music in the 1970s, whacked out on opium, hashish and mescaline, dazed but not confused. RedGreenBlue may or may not indulge in the same psychotropic self-medication as their Lower East Side ancestors, but their strange and beautiful debut album, The End And The Beginning, suggests they do, and that is what counts. ...
read moreRob Clearfield and Quin Kirchner: Concentric Orbits
by Troy Dostert
Listeners familiar with the current Chicago jazz scene will need no introduction to pianist Rob Clearfield and drummer Quin Kirchner. Both have been intrinsic to others' projects over the years, such as Matt Ulery's Delicate Charms (Woolgathering, 2019) and Greg Ward's High Alert (Sugah Hoof, 2020), but their most prominent partnership to date is probably Kirchner's own The Shadows and the Light (Astral Spirits, 2020), an absorbing double album with infectious grooves galore, many of which were anchored by Clearfield's ...
read moreNick Mazzarella / Ingebrigt Håker Flaten / Avreeayl Ra: What You Seek Is Seeking You
by Mark Corroto
In a trio format, listeners have come to expect alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella to lead and write all the compositions. He introduced himself to the world with Aviary (Thought To Sound Records, 2010), and followed up with three more trio releases with bassist Anton Hatwich and drummer Frank Rosaly, four if we count Triangulum (Clean Feed, 2017) from his Meridian Trio (Jeremy Cunningham and Matt Ulery). These albums highlight Mazzarella's ability to compose, perform and, maybe of greater significance, organize ...
read moreArtifacts: Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, Mike Reed: …and then there’s this
by John Sharpe
For the follow up to the excellent debut Artifacts (482 Music, 2015), the stellar threesome of cellist Tomeka Reid, flautist Nicole Mitchell, and drummer Mike Reed waxes another outstanding album, but one which differs in two respects. Firstly this time out the emphasis is on the compositional smarts of the crew rather than a celebration of their forebears in Chicago's esteemed AACM. Secondly, as Mitchell elucidates, this collection is also more focused on the groove. But neither is a dramatic ...
read moreJack Cooper & Jeff Tobias: Tributaries
by Gareth Thompson
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus claimed that “No one ever steps in the same river twice," as everything is in flux and constantly changing. By the same logic we might say that no jazz musician ever plays the same piece twice. Now consider the album Tributaries, a river-inspired work created by Jack Cooper (guitar) and Jeff Tobias (saxophone). On the calm surface it all seems pre-composed and constant, yet in the puddles of space there is scope for both men to ...
read moreArtifacts: Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, Mike Reed: …and then there’s this
by Mark Corroto
Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians or AACM, formed in 1965, adopted the maxim “ancient to the future." The future of which they spoke, in the hands of the next generation heard here, is indeed secure. The trio Artifacts comprises the gifted successors to the AACM, cellist Tomeka Reid, flutist Nicole Mitchell, and drummer Mike Reed. ...and then there's this is the trio's second release and it follows the self-titled debut from 482 Music in 2015. Where that ...
read moreRoscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed: The Ritual and the Dance
by John Sharpe
Though reedman Roscoe Mitchell has appeared as a guest with drummer Mike Reed's Loose Assembly outfit, captured on Empathetic Parts (482 Music, 2010), this compelling set unfurls firmly on Mitchell's improvisatory turf. On The Ritual And The Dance the representatives of two generations of Chicago's AACM combine in a single 36-minute outpouring recorded in Antwerp in 2015, likely during dates to promote an earlier duet In Pursuit Of Magic (482 Music, 2014). It begins with Mitchell's coiled squeaks, ...
read moreWadada Leo Smith / Douglas Ewart / Mike Reed: Sun Beans Of Shimmering Light
by John Sharpe
Three significant forces spanning two generations of the forward-thinking Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians meet in a poised recital on Sun Beans Of Shimmering Light. Although recorded in 2015 at drummer Mike Reed's Constellation arts space in Chicago, the concert's genesis lies some five years earlier and 700 miles to the east. When Reed's band People, Places & Things played the 2010 Vision Festival in NYC on the same evening as Wadada Leo Smith, the ...
read more
Giveaway
Days remaining: 5
